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The ability of patients to comply with discharge instructions is related to their activation level. Research indicates that identifying and intervening on behalf of patients with low activation levels could reduce their risk of an unplanned rehospitalization.¹

Patient engagement generally describes patient involvement in their own healthcare. The concept of patient engagement is not new; for example, diabetes educators have been talking about “shared decision making” since the early 1990s.¹ It is still a current hot topic among policymakers, though, and is a key component of meaningful use legislation, the Affordable Care Act, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Health Care. Additionally, increasing patient engagement can benefit you and your patients. Engaged patients are more likely to have better outcomes and greater satisfaction with their healthcare experience and are also less likely to file malpractice lawsuits.²

The informed consent process is an excellent time to engage patients. Ideally, an informed consent to treatment is the end result of a shared decision making process between a clinician and patient. This process, when executed appropriately, can have many benefits. It can decrease liability exposure, increase patient adherence, protect the patient’s right to self-determination and increase patient satisfaction.¹

The benefits of using social media in a medical practice are becoming increasingly clear, which makes the pressure to get involved even greater. As medical practices become more sophisticated at using social media for knowledge sharing, marketing, and other forms of communication, those who fail to participate will fall behind. These social media tips for medical practices can help you get started.

With the prevalence of online self-diagnosis tools, the nature of physician-patient exchanges has shifted significantly. Search trends show that a large number of people research their symptoms online. In the U.S., one third of adults say that they have gone online in an effort to self-diagnose. 77% of these online searches begin with a major search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing.¹ With Google reporting in 2016 that they handle more than 2 trillion searches per year,² and that 1% of all searches were related to medical symptoms,³ that’s more than 20 billion web searches for medical symptoms on Google alone every year.