3 Ways mHealth Can Increase Member Engagement

As more and more people rely on smartphones and tablets to operate daily necessities of modern-day life, it is becoming more important to communicate to patients through concise and accessible methods – especially when it comes to increasing member engagement.

The idea behind implementing mHealth strategies in the healthcare sector stems from the fact that in 2013, there were approximately 145 million smartphone users in the U.S., with that number expected to increase to more than 200 million by 2017. That being said, it is safe to say that the average patient owns a mobile device, making apps that can reach them on these devices the most efficient medium to improve member engagement.

Consider the following ways mHealth can benefit patient/user relations:

• Eliminate unanswered, vital questions: With an mHealth system in place, whether it’s a messaging system, mobile application or tablet-friendly landing page, prescription users have the ability to get answers to important questions about their medications, whether they’re about dosage, frequency or side effect warning signs.
• Optimize communications: On average, only three out of 10 consumers follow through with getting their prescriptions refilled. This adherence failure has been estimated to cost the U.S. healthcare system up to $300 billion annually, resulting in avoidable hospitalizations, nursing home admissions and premature death. mHealth in the form of refill reminders that are sent via text message, email or through pharmacy-specific applications can greatly reduce these preventable costs and help improve the healthcare system, overall.
• Streamline prescription data: With data such as prescription records now almost entirely digital, optimization of these records is difficult to achieve without the implementation of mHealth. While messaging is a great way to improve your patient relations, it can be difficult to manage the communications without specialized programs that keep records and handle messaging approval, testing and scheduling.

Implementing mHealth strategies not only helps ensure that users are adhering to their prescriptions properly, they can also position your business as an important touch point of a consumer’s daily interaction with the healthcare system. To find out more about how mHealth can improve your operations, contact the experts at RXEOB today.