Best Patient Engagement Software

Technology and patient engagement go hand in hand. As we touched on in our last blog, Measuring Patient Engagement, the main way modern healthcare is including patients is through software.  

According to Welkin Health, “global patient engagement solutions market is projected to reach $25.9 billion by 2024”. The research, performed by MarketsandMarkets, states this growth is patient-driven. This is because these digital tools are enabling: 

• Personal care management 
• Better patient/clinician communication 
• Better patient education 
• Proactive or preventative care via reporting 

Professional services agency Deloitte has written about how the “human experience and patient-centricity” are taking centre stage within modern healthcare, working from diagnosis to recovery. This is done through patient engagement applications, such as patient portals. These apps are involving patients in their own care management to achieve the four points above. This is mostly in collaboration with GP surgeries, but the NHS also uses patient portals across its numerous trusts or within specific national teams. 

Patient Engagement Hit reported that a study in the US, published June 2022, said: “Patients between ages 18 and 34 are nearly twice as likely to select a facility that has digital access tools such as appointment check-in, online appointment booking, price transparency, online bill-pay, and online provider communication. Younger patients especially wanted price transparency tools that determine healthcare costs before a visit.” This is great testimony for healthcare organisations, reinforcing the point that investment in patient engagement technology needs to happen as soon as possible. The quality of life or creature comforts provided by consumer software and applications in day-to-day life have gotten people accustomed to these easy features, so it’s no surprise that the demand is there for similar ease with their healthcare. 

There’s also added benefit for care capacity and improved patient satisfaction. If a healthcare organisation, such as a GP surgery, can provide an engagement tool such as a patient portal to handle appointments then it’s saving the team time. This time is then used on less digitally literate people but can also help staff improve patient literacy and do more to make the digital systems accessible, which in turn will improve patient confidence, trust, and satisfaction. 

These patient engagement tools go beyond the basic questionnaire type things we’ve been used to for years. Instead, fully fledged patient engagement systems are playing their part within a wider holistic care network. The direct question and answer interaction isn’t gone, but the evolution of care has added observation and data analysis.  

For years patients have been engaging or interacting, but there was no means to realistically collate the information generated beyond clinical notes. Now patient engagement can be tracked through software solutions, detailing which parts of healthcare apps are most or least used, and demographic breakdowns to see ages, races, genders and location (parts of district or wider region, for example). 

This new integrated environment is one of the big goals within modern healthcare: to provide joined-up care in a bid to improve both healthcare and efficiency within the system. Patient engagement technology plays a part in this jigsaw puzzle approach by integrating patients in a way that they’re part of the team almost, rather than a dependent for healthcare professionals.

Identifying all of the patient engagement software companies available to healthcare providers would be too long a list to publish; ever-growing and constantly updating. Instead, it’s better to think about what qualifies a solutions provider as a patient engagement company. 

Companies like The Access Group, Inzio Engage, IQVIA, Athena Health – we’re all patient engagement companies. We all provide some service or solution that connects patients and healthcare professionals, directly or indirectly integrating them into their personal care. 

Few organisations will be specifically instigating patient engagement. It is normally a by-product of other solutions. In the case of our software, applications such as Access Assure or Rio Mood Diary are devices that require the involvement of the patient.

The patient engagement solutions market is broad, and as such it’s difficult to name THE best patient engagement software. As mentioned in the last section, there are lots of companies providing healthcare solutions that engage patients, in areas such as: 

• Patient portals 
• Remote/home monitoring 
• Remote/web chat & messaging 
• Appointment reminders 
• Patient surveys 
• Patient records – EPR/EHR 

Instead, we’re going to highlight some of the best patient engagement tools in each of these sectors so that you – and healthcare providers – can see which patient engagement platforms are best suited to them.

Patient portals 

Patient portals are the biggest area of patient engagement. They require patients to actively get involved in their own care; logging in to an app or web browser to access things such as appointment booking and repeat prescription orders. 

Some of the most popular independent patient portal solutions include: 

• Patient Access - Attractive design 
  A very minimalist and easy-to-use platform. One of the most popular on the market thanks to its sleek design. 
• Wellola - Simple to use 
  A mobile & browser portal combo boasting a clean design and no difficulties learning how to use the software. It’s all very obvious and simple. 
• SystmOnline - Mobile app 
  The web portal is outdated and not pretty, but the app version Airmid is a proper modern solution and offers simple access to your details, appointments, and more. 
• Patient Services - Popular 
  One of the market leaders but unfortunately light on previews of how their portal operates. Surgeries wouldn’t use them if they weren’t reliable, but they are an enigma.

Remote/home monitoring 

Remote or home monitoring involves the recording of vital health information such as heart rate, pulse, oxygen saturation and temperature, as well as other more advanced data such as behavioural trends and patterns for typical activity – from which anomalies can be inferred or deduced. 

Popular remote monitoring solutions include: 

• Access Assure - Prevention
  Assure offers both traditional reactive home monitoring and proactive care via data analysis and pattern recognition, spotting problems before they happen. 
• Current Health - Flexibility
  Current Health’s innovative biosensor is an all-in-one device for a patient’s vitals, and they aim to be device agnostic, meaning they can pair with most EPR tools. 
• Whzan Digital Health - Blue Box
  Whzan has a fair home monitoring system, but it’s their patented Blue Box that’s the big attraction – all the kit for vitals and reporting in one neat bundle. 
• Clinitouch - Compiling 
  Clinitouch doesn’t do the monitoring itself, rather it collates all of the devices that take the readings into one location and builds up the data into a presentable picture of evidence.

Remote/web chat & messaging 

Messaging services offer a twin-prong approach to interacting with patients. Many of these services are staffed by human, but many also offer an initial “AI” response – an automated introduction and reply to gauge an inquiry, before then connecting person to person. 

Common messaging services include: 

• Zendesk Chat - Suite
  Zendesk’s chat module is good, but the real benefit is the bigger picture support suite it can be a part of should a provider need a more extensive solution. 
• Lucky Orange - Simple
  Probably the default style of web messaging that you’d imagine. A popup box to connect patient and professional, with the option for automated messages and notifications. 
• Rio Virtual Assistant - Extra functionality
  Rio’s Virtual Assistant is not a chat tool. It emulates human conversation to save staff time, with a database of answers and responses to all the common questions patients have. It can handle appointment management, and will redirect patients if it cannot answer a question. 
• Live Chat - Enhanced
  Like Lucky Orange, this is a very simplistic style of web messenger, but it also has some added elements to embellish the chat with opportunities to flag specific areas of inquiry – similar to pushing a number on a phone keypad when calling a GP surgery. 
• RE:Amaze - Public & Private Facing 
  Re:amaze offers both a functional web messenger for patient/consumer facing websites, but also an additional package for behind-the-scenes comms ala Microsoft Teams or Slack.

Appointment reminders 

One of the big drains on the NHS in the UK is a failure to attend appointments. According to Emitrr, “as much as 30% forget about their follow-up appointments and a whopping 50% of patients don’t show up.” Reminder solutions have rapidly grown in popularity, with texts or emails detailing an appointment date and location, and often even the clinician you’ll see.  

Appointment reminder solutions include: 

• 10 to 8 - Comprehensive
  Emails, texts, and even automated calls can be done via 10 to 8’s solution, boasting a 90% reduction in missed appointments according to their own testimony. 
• Appointment Reminder - Texts
  Simple and to the point text message alerts and reminders to patients. 
• TextMagic - Scheduled 
  Another text-based service, but TextMagic offers varied scheduling and message management to better time the sending of notifications.

Patient surveys 

A modern take on the old patient surveys or questionnaires is the use of digital surveys or online forms to ascertain the thoughts of the patient on personal health issues or the wider community on bigger issues. There are many patient survey tools, such as: 

• Google Forms – Standard 
  You can’t go wrong with a basic Google Form. 
• Smart Survey - Popular
  Several NHS trusts and local authorities already use Smart Survey. It’s approved by NHS Digital’s own security metrics, and offers an inclusive approach to patient surveys. 
• Qualtrics - Integration
  Aside being a broad ranging survey tool, Qualtrics can also integrate with other solutions such as Zendesk Chat – a boon when engaging patients there in the moment.
• IQVIA - Data Specialists 
  Like Smart Survey, there’s a lot of NHS usage of IQVIA. They don’t showcase the exact engagement options they deploy, instead focusing on the analytics they can perform and the insights their data collection methodology can produce.

Patient records 

The last engagement solutions we’re touching on are patient records, often referred to as electronic patient records (EPR) or electronic health records (EHR). Typically these records are for GP or clinician input, rather than patient interaction, but in some cases patients can be contacted to fill in basic information or an initial registration. 

Standout patient record solutions include: 

• Access Rio EPR - Interoperability
  A central hub for patient records. No duplication of records reduces errors and less time on admin, plus it’s interoperable with other solutions and accessible at the point of care. 
• EMIS - Popular
  A real-time patient information solution linking GP surgeries and NHS trusts. They’re a little coy on how it looks as a solution, but boast over 50% of UK GP practices using their tool... 
• Orion Health - Insight
  Orion’s Digital Care Record offers integration to better consolidate patient data, but they also offer data insights relating to population health management. 
• SystmOne - Centralised 
  SystmOne is a singular, centralised record offering a detailed patient health record, but TPP only occasionally allows partnerships with other solutions for interoperability.

The costs for patient engagement solutions will vary depending on the size of the solution and its bigger picture purpose. A web chat tool for example may cost less monthly or annually than a full patient portal. TrustRadius puts the range between $50-$500 US dollars based on this proviso. 

There are other rough estimates available online. Crelio Health charge around $150-$250, Pabau charge £65 a month, and Pilloxa, who offer bespoke app and browser portal building for between €2,500 and €5,000. It should be noted that the online availability of prices is very limited without a sales consultation, and typically prices aren’t listed up front – especially outside of the United States.

The best patient engagement software remains a subjective conclusion, but we hope this article has enlightened you to the best patient software solutions available on the market. There are many great engagement solutions, and a variety of ways to engage, but ultimately one will suit you better than the rest and help you take that next step in improving patient engagement and improving care outcomes.