Patient engagement technology has become essential as healthcare increasingly shifts toward digital, patient-centered care. The global patient engagement solutions market is projected to grow at an impressive 17.7% annual rate, reaching $70.3 billion by 2030. This rapid adoption underscores how much practices and hospitals value tools that streamline engagement across the patient journey.
Why? Because efficiency matters. Imagine needing to travel 50 miles. Would you choose to walk or drive? While both options get you to the destination, a car is the clear winner for saving time and effort. Similarly, patient engagement technology helps healthcare teams navigate the complexities of patient care efficiently, from pre-visit check-ins to post-visit follow-ups.
This efficiency isn’t just a convenience—it’s a necessity. Patients today have more options than ever, and loyalty is no longer guaranteed. They expect healthcare to match the ease and speed of experiences they encounter in retail or banking. To meet these demands, providers need tools that simplify collaboration between patients, staff, and clinicians, ultimately supporting better outcomes.
In this blog, we’ll dive into the 7 essential patient engagement solutions every healthcare organization needs to be leveraging. These tools not only lighten administrative workloads but also enhance the patient experience and improve outcomes.
Must-Have Solution #1: Patient Portals
Patient portals have quickly become a cornerstone of modern patient engagement. In 2022, 3 in 5 patients reported being offered and accessing their online medical records—a 50% increase since 2020. These secure platforms allow patients to manage appointments, communicate with providers, and access health information at their convenience. By integrating with other digital tools, patient portals set the foundation for a seamless, patient-centered experience.
How Patient Portals Solve Key Challenges
Without a patient portal, patients must rely on phone calls to communicate with providers, access medical records, schedule appointments, or make payments. This manual approach frustrates patients with long hold times and delayed responses while overloading staff with repetitive administrative tasks.
Challenges for Staff
- High call volumes for routine requests like scheduling or lab results
- Time-consuming manual data entry and administrative tasks
- Increased risk of errors when manually managing patient information
Challenges for Patients
- Inconvenience of relying on phone calls for communication or access to information
- Limited access to healthcare tools outside of office hours
- Fragmented experiences that discourage active engagement in their care
Patient portals simplify healthcare interactions by giving patients a single, user-friendly platform to manage their health.
For staff, portals reduce phone traffic by putting essential tools—like appointment scheduling, secure messaging, and online payments—directly in the hands of patients. Integration with systems like the EHR ensures information flows seamlessly, eliminating manual data entry and improving accuracy. With fewer administrative burdens, staff can focus on delivering high-quality care.
For patients, portals provide the flexibility to manage their healthcare on their terms, whether it’s during a lunch break or while on the go. Easy access to key information encourages patients to stay engaged, promoting proactive care and better health outcomes. By creating a simpler, more accessible experience, patient portals benefit both patients and providers alike.
Key Features Needed in a Patient Portal
Modern patient portals go beyond providing basic access to medical records.
Instead, they should act as a healthcare hub—a one-stop shop where patients can easily access all the tools they need to manage their health. By centralizing these activities, portals eliminate the need for patients to navigate multiple platforms or rely on phone calls to get the information they need. This simplicity not only enhances the patient experience but also drives greater engagement.
At its core, a patient portal should offer:
Online scheduling and forms give patients a seamless way to complete appointment pre-work before they arrive at the office. It also enables patients to more quickly rebook appointments without needing to call into the office. This streamlines the check-in process, reduces wait times, and ensures both patients and staff are well-prepared for the visit.
Secure messaging offers a direct and secure way for patients to communicate with providers. This makes it easier to address concerns or ask questions without needing to make a call or schedule a visit.
Online bill payment helps patients stay on top of their payments by making outstanding balances and billing history easily accessible. Instead of waiting for a bill to arrive in the mail, patients can pay instantly while already engaging with their health in the portal. This provides greater convenience for them and faster payments for your practice.
Ease of use is crucial to ensure patients are willing to engage with the portal. A well-designed portal guides patients intuitively through tasks, from signing up to navigating key features. Clear instructions, streamlined layouts, and a simple registration process make accessing the portal easy and stress-free for patients of all ages and technological abilities.
Seamless integration with your practice’s electronic health records (EHR) system ensures both patients and providers are viewing the same real-time information. This improves accuracy, simplifies workflows, and fosters better communication for more coordinated care.
Accessibility ensures that all patients can use your portal, regardless of their location or circumstances To accomplish this, your portal must offer an inclusive design offering mobile access for patients to manage their care on the go and multilingual support to ensure patients can engage with their health in their preferred language.
Must-Have Solution #2: Patient Intake Technology
The patient intake process is one of the most labor-intensive steps for both patients and healthcare teams. Practices need to collect a significant amount of information before a patient arrives, and managing this manually often leads to frustration, inefficiency, and delays.
Digital intake solutions simplify this process by enabling patients to complete pre-visit tasks—like providing required information and making payments—entirely online. These tools reduce the workload for staff, eliminate unnecessary bottlenecks, and create a smoother, more convenient experience for patients.
Let’s dive deeper into the challenges these solutions help solve.
How Patient Intake Technology Solves Key Challenges
The patient intake process is a common frustration for both staff and patients, creating inefficiencies that slow down workflows and add unnecessary stress. These include:
Challenges for Staff
- Administrative burden from manual data entry and insurance verification
- Increased risk of billing errors and claim denials
- Disruptions caused by juggling intake tasks alongside other responsibilities
Challenges for Patients
- Time spent completing forms in the waiting room
- Frustration from repeating information or locating documents
- Stress caused by unexpected balances and delayed payment processes
Digital intake solutions streamline the process for both staff and patients, eliminating inefficiencies and creating a smoother experience.
For staff, automation reduces the workload by digitizing key tasks like form delivery, insurance verification, and payment reminders. This minimizes errors, optimizes workflows, and allows staff to focus on higher-value tasks, such as providing exceptional care.
Patients benefit from the convenience of completing all pre-visit tasks—forms, insurance submissions, and payments—from home. This mirrors the seamless, user-friendly experiences they expect from online retailers, making the process simple and intuitive. Arriving at their appointment with everything completed means patients spend less time in the waiting room and more time focusing on their health.
By replacing manual processes with digital tools, patient intake solutions save time, reduce stress, and improve accuracy, transforming what was once a major pain point into a seamless part of the care journey.
Key Features Needed in a Digital Intake Solution
The best patient intake solutions are designed to simplify the process for both patients and providers. From automating data capture to streamlining check-ins, these tools reduce errors, save time, and create a smoother experience for everyone involved.
Here’s the key features your digital intake solution needs to foster this type of experience:
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Manually entering insurance information or ID card details during the intake process is not only time-consuming but can also lead to costly errors in the form of claim rejections or denials. Intake solutions with built-in OCR capabilities eliminate this issue by automating data extraction, ensuring patients can quickly and accurately submit their required information.
Real-Time Eligibility Verification
Insurance-related issues—such as claim denials or network coverage issues—are a major source of frustration for both patients and providers. Real-time eligibility verification removes this uncertainty by automatically verifying insurance details, ensuring providers have accurate, up-to-date coverage information before services are rendered. This reduces the risk of unexpected costs for patients and enables providers to deliver care with confidence.
Embedded Payment Capabilities
Digital intake solutions with embedded payment options make it easy for all patients to pay their balances before arriving at the office—whether they are new to the practice, returning, or don’t have a portal account. When paired with automated eligibility checks, staff can trust that outstanding balances are accurate, and patients can feel confident knowing they won’t receive a surprise bill in the mail.
EHR Mapping
Seamless integration with the EHR is essential for accurate data sharing between patient engagement tools and the practice’s records. Some intake solutions only pass information back to the EHR as a PDF, requiring staff to manually re-enter data into the chart. This creates additional work and introduces the risk of errors. The best solutions eliminate this burden by enabling real-time data exchange between the EHR and patient engagement solutions via the integration built between both systems.
Mobile Check-In
Mobile check-in transforms the patient intake process by allowing patients to avoid sitting in crowded waiting rooms before seeing their doctor. This feature not only reduces the risk of spreading illness but also lets patients remain where they’re most comfortable—whether in their car or another nearby location.
At the same time, mobile check-in keeps the practice running smoothly by notifying staff when a patient has arrived. This gives the team time to prepare, ensuring a more efficient and seamless process for everyone involved.
Must-Have Solution #3: Patient Self-Scheduling Technology
Patient scheduling solutions provide flexible options for patients to book, reschedule, or join waitlists for appointments, syncing with the practice’s schedule in real time. These tools integrate seamlessly with a practice’s schedule, syncing in real-time to reduce administrative burdens and improve scheduling accuracy.
By giving patients the ability to manage their appointments on their terms, practices can deliver a more modern, patient-centered experience. Let’s explore the benefits and challenges these solutions address.
How Patient Self-Scheduling Technology Solves Key Challenges
Traditional scheduling methods, like phone calls or email requests, create inefficiencies that frustrate both staff and patients. Long hold times, delayed callbacks, and rigid office hours often deter patients from booking appointments, while manual processes lead to scheduling conflicts, no-shows, and underutilized provider time—affecting both patient satisfaction and practice profitability.
Challenges for Staff
- Excessive time spent on phone-based scheduling and follow-ups
- Difficulty optimizing provider schedules due to no-shows and late cancellations
- Disruptions caused by manual rescheduling and administrative inefficiencies
Challenges for Patients
- Inconvenience of scheduling during limited office hours or waiting on callbacks
- Delayed care due to difficulty booking or rescheduling appointments
- Missed opportunities to fill earlier openings when cancellations occur
Self-scheduling solutions simplify the entire scheduling process for everyone involved. By automating appointment booking, rescheduling, and cancellations, these tools reduce administrative burdens on staff while ensuring provider schedules remain optimized. Features like smart waitlists help practices fill cancellations quickly, minimizing wasted time and resources.
For patients, self-scheduling offers the flexibility to book or adjust appointments at their convenience—no phone calls, no waiting on hold. This convenience encourages patients to stay proactive about their care, leading to better outcomes. By eliminating barriers to timely scheduling, practices can foster healthier patients while improving overall efficiency and profitability.
Key Features Needed in a Patient Self-Scheduling Solution
Your patient scheduling solution should include key features that give patients complete control over their appointments while keeping your practice running efficiently.
Let’s explore each.
Self-Scheduling
With 67% of patients preferring to book appointments online, self-scheduling meets the demand for convenience. Patients can view availability, select a time slot, and confirm appointments instantly—without staff involvement. Advanced scheduling tools with decision tree functionality guide patients to the correct provider, appointment type, or service, using logic-based rules to ensure accurate matches.
Customizable Scheduling Links
Customizable links simplify self-scheduling by giving patients direct access to the right appointment options. Practices can create tailored links for specific appointment types, providers, or services, ensuring patients are guided to the correct choices without confusion. These links can be shared through email, text, your Google listing, your website, or even platforms like Healthgrades—maximizing your reach and offering limitless possibilities for patient convenience.
Smart Waitlists
Smart waitlists minimize scheduling gaps by automatically alerting the next eligible patient when a cancellation occurs. Patients can specify their preferred appointment type, provider, and time frame, and the system fills openings efficiently by notifying the next patient in line.
Automated Reminders
Automated appointment reminders ensure patients stay on track with their pre-visit requirements. Notifications can remind patients about upcoming appointments, unfinished forms, outstanding payments, or pre-visit instructions. These reminders are sent through email, text, or the patient portal, tailored to the patient’s preferred communication method.
Note: Some advanced solutions also offer AI-driven scheduling that optimizes appointment matching and cancellation backfills.
Must-Have Solution #4: Patient Communication Technology
Patient communication solutions automate key interactions such as reminders, care instructions, and follow-ups, enabling seamless two-way communication through text, email, and phone. By replacing outdated manual processes with automated tools, these solutions ensure patients stay informed and engaged while significantly reducing inefficiencies for staff.
How Patient Communication Technology Solves Key Challenges
Traditional communication methods, like manual reminders and phone calls, create inefficiencies that frustrate both staff and patients. Missed reminders, long hold times, and inconsistent follow-ups can lead to no-shows, disrupted workflows, and disengaged patients.
Challenges for Staff
- Time wasted on individual calls and follow-ups
- Increased stress from managing phone-based interactions
- Workflow disruptions due to missed or delayed communications
Challenges for Patients
- Frustration with long hold times or delayed responses
- Difficulty rescheduling or asking questions without hassle
- Missed appointments due to unclear or inconsistent reminders
Patient communication solutions eliminate these barriers by reducing the time staff spend managing communication with patients and offering patients a more seamless way to stay connected. With tools that deliver timely reminders, enable convenient rescheduling, and streamline mass updates, practices can keep schedules optimized and patients engaged—without the stress of outdated communication methods.
Key Features Needed in a Patient Communication Solution
A robust patient communication solution should go beyond basic reminders, offering tools that ensure timely, clear, and personalized interactions. By integrating features like automated, multilingual messaging, two-way texting, secure chat, and broadcast messaging, these solutions create more effective and inclusive communication between patients, providers, and care teams.
Automated Appointment Reminders
Flexibility is key when it comes to automated appointment reminders. Practices should look for a solution that allows staff to create custom reminders on the fly, tailoring messages to meet specific needs. Some solutions lack this flexibility, forcing practices to use generic, pre-set messages, which can create unnecessary headaches and reduce the effectiveness of communications.
Additionally, patients should have the option to choose how they want to receive appointment reminders—whether by call, text, or email
Multilingual Capabilities
Effective communication begins with ensuring all patients can understand the information they receive. Automated reminders that support multiple languages allow practices to accommodate patients whose native language isn’t English.
Two-Way Text Messaging
Patients don’t want to wait on hold, and staff don’t have time for constant callbacks. Two-way texting eliminates these frustrations by opening up a direct line of communication. Patients can send questions or updates before their appointment, and staff can respond when it’s most convenient. This back-and-forth keeps everyone on the same page and helps avoid surprises on the day of the visit.
Secure Chat
A secure chat tool gives patients an always-available way to communicate with their providers. Whether it’s sharing sensitive documents or discussing a health concern, patients can handle their needs remotely without having to sit on the phone.
Broadcast Messaging
Broadcast messaging gives healthcare organizations a quick and effective way to communicate important updates to large groups of patients. Whether notifying patients about a weather-related closure, policy change, or appointment delays, this tool ensures messages reach everyone promptly.
Must-Have Solution #5: Telehealth
Telehealth emerged as a necessity during the pandemic, ensuring patients could continue receiving care when in-person visits weren’t possible. But what began as an urgent solution has evolved into a cornerstone of modern healthcare. Patients now expect the convenience of virtual care, and few things are more appealing than attending a doctor’s visit from the comfort of home.
Telehealth solutions not only meet this demand for convenience but also provide practices with a powerful tool to extend access, improve patient engagement, and deliver continuous care.
How Telehealth Solves Key Challenges
Barriers to care, such as lack of transportation or geographic limitations, can prevent patients from accessing the care they need. Without telehealth solutions, many patients skip appointments or avoid scheduling them altogether, leading to irregular doctor’s visits and poorer health outcomes. Under value-based care models, missed appointments and inconsistent engagement can also negatively impact a practice’s outcome measurements, ultimately affecting both patient care and practice reimbursements.
Challenges for Staff
- Missed appointments disrupt schedules and reduce provider utilization
- Difficulty coordinating follow-ups for chronic care patients leads to fragmented care
- Poor outcome measurements under value-based care models impact population health metrics and reimbursements
Challenges for Patients
- Lack of transportation or proximity to care makes in-office visits difficult
- Time-consuming travel and logistical challenges discourage regular care
- Chronic care patients face gaps in continuity without flexible follow-up options
- Telehealth solutions remove these barriers by enabling virtual consultations and remote monitoring.
For staff, telehealth reduces no-shows, improves adherence to care plans, and simplifies follow-ups for chronic conditions. This leads to stronger patient engagement and improved metrics under value-based care models.
For patients, telehealth offers the convenience of attending appointments from home, significantly reducing travel time and logistical hurdles. Virtual visits ensure continuity of care for those with chronic conditions or limited access to in-person services, promoting healthier outcomes and fostering trust in their providers.
Key Features Needed in a Telehealth Solution
A robust telehealth solution should prioritize both patient and staff convenience, ensuring virtual appointments are as seamless and secure as in-person visits. From protecting patient privacy to simplifying workflows, the right features make telehealth an integral part of modern care delivery.
Secure Video Visits
Patients should never have to worry about confidentiality or data security during a virtual appointment. Secure video platforms that comply with HIPAA regulations protect patient data, ensuring the same privacy standards as in-office visits. This allows patients to discuss their health with confidence, knowing their information is safe.
Support for Guest Attendees
Telehealth visits often include non-patient attendees, such as family members or caregivers, when the patient provides consent. It’s essential for telehealth platforms to support these guest attendees, offering clear instructions and accessible support if they encounter technical issues.
One-Click Access
Patients don’t want to navigate complicated logins or download apps just to attend a virtual visit. Practices should prioritize ease of use, eliminating unnecessary steps that could deter patients from showing up. With one-click access, patients can quickly join their appointment, even if they’re unfamiliar with the platform.
Mimicking In-Person Workflows
Telehealth solutions should seamlessly fit into existing workflows, allowing staff to manage virtual appointments just like in-office visits. This means handling patient administration tasks—such as scheduling, check-ins, and billing—within the same system and following the same processes as in-person care. By eliminating the need for separate tools or workflows, telehealth platforms ensure a smooth, convenient experience for both staff and patients.
Must-Have Solution #6: Automated Patient Surveys
Patient surveys are a vital tool for modern healthcare practices, offering insights into both patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes. They allow practices to gauge how patients feel about their experiences while also collecting valuable patient-reported outcomes (PROs) that inform care decisions and improve overall health outcomes.
By leveraging surveys, practices can better understand patient needs, identify areas for improvement, and provide a more personalized approach to care. Let’s explore the challenges surveys address and the benefits they bring.
How Automated Patient Surveys Solve Key Challenges
Despite their importance, surveying patients is often deprioritized due to the demands of other day-to-day patient management tasks. This is because traditional survey methods, like paper forms or phone calls, are time-consuming, inefficient, and often result in low response rates.
Staff must dedicate significant time to creating, distributing, and processing surveys, leaving little room for real-time improvements. For patients, these outdated methods are inconvenient and rarely encourage timely participation, limiting their effectiveness in addressing concerns or tracking outcomes.
Challenges for Staff
- Manual creation, distribution, and collection of surveys is labor-intensive
- Delayed feedback makes it difficult to address patient concerns promptly
- Limited ability to track patient-reported outcomes (PROs) consistently
Challenges for Patients
- Inconvenient survey formats discourage participation
- Lack of real-time responsiveness can lead to dissatisfaction
- Limited opportunities to share progress or concerns
Digital patient surveys eliminate the inefficiencies of traditional methods, offering an easier way to collect and act on valuable feedback.
For staff, digital surveys simplify distribution and automate data collection, reducing administrative burdens. Insights are available in real time, enabling practices to prioritize quality improvements and monitor patient-reported outcomes more effectively.
For patients, surveys provide a seamless way to share feedback and treatment progress from any device, creating a sense of trust and engagement. By addressing concerns promptly and using feedback to drive improvements, practices enhance the overall patient experience while fostering healthier outcomes.
Modern patient survey solutions are designed to do more than just collect feedback—they empower practices to uncover meaningful insights, track patient-reported outcomes (PROs), and improve the overall care experience. With advanced customization and filtering options, these tools ensure surveys are relevant, actionable, and seamlessly integrated into the patient journey.
Let’s dive into some of these features in more detail:
Key Features Needed in an Automated Survey Solution
Automated Post-Visit Surveys
Post-visit surveys provide valuable insights into patient satisfaction and outcomes, keeping communication open between appointments. These automated surveys not only show patients that their feedback matters but also improve adherence to medications and treatment plans. Practices can use these insights to enhance population health management and support healthier outcomes.
Customizable Templates
Customizable templates make creating surveys simple and flexible. Practices can automate surveys for various purposes—post-visit feedback, provider ratings, or between-visit evaluations—using drag-and-drop functionality. These polished, personalized surveys allow staff to easily gather the feedback they need without added complexity.
Advanced Filtering and Group Creation
The best survey tools allow healthcare teams to filter and build survey groups using any data point found in the patient record. This includes diagnosis, procedure, symptom, demographic information, or payer type. These capabilities ensure that the right surveys reach the right patients, enabling practices to gather highly relevant and actionable insights.
Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs)
Capturing patient-reported outcomes, such as PHQ-9s, PHQ-10s, HOOS, and KOOS, sets advanced survey tools apart. These tools allow providers to collect critical clinical data directly from patients, supporting better care planning and tracking treatment effectiveness over time. This functionality is crucial for practices focused on both patient satisfaction and measurable health outcomes.
Reports and Benchmarks
Survey solutions should offer robust reporting and benchmarking capabilities, using data gathered at the patient, provider, and organizational levels. By analyzing survey results, practices can compare their performance against industry benchmarks, identify areas for improvement, and track progress over time. These insights provide a clear path for enhancing patient engagement and satisfaction.
Must-Have Solution #7: Automated Interventions for Population Health
While traditional patient surveys provide valuable insights, integrating automated interventions takes those efforts a step further. By combining survey data with population health tools, practices can trigger personalized outreach campaigns that keep patients engaged in their care, particularly those at risk or in need of preventive services. This proactive approach ensures that patient feedback regarding satisfaction or health status doesn't just inform care—it drives it.
How Automated Population Health Campaigns Solve Key Challenges
Inconsistent manual outreach leaves gaps in patient engagement, particularly for high-risk populations. This leads to missed opportunities for preventive care, chronic condition management, and follow-up visits, ultimately affecting both patient outcomes and practice performance under value-based care models.
Challenges for Staff
- Manual outreach is time-intensive and inconsistent, making it difficult to engage every patient
- Missed opportunities to address care gaps and improve value-based care metrics
- Limited visibility into campaign success, making it harder to refine outreach efforts
Challenges for Patients
- Lack of timely reminders for preventive care or follow-up appointments
- Missed opportunities to manage chronic conditions or other health concerns
- Limited access to personalized communication that aligns with patient preferences
Automated solutions transform how practices engage patients, ensuring outreach is both consistent and meaningful.
For staff, automation reduces administrative workloads by eliminating manual outreach tasks and providing actionable insights. Practices can target the right patients with the right messages, improving care gaps while aligning efforts with value-based care goals like MIPS scores and shared savings programs.
For patients, these campaigns deliver timely reminders and personalized outreach, encouraging engagement in preventive care and chronic disease management. By staying informed and connected to their providers, patients are empowered to take proactive steps toward better health and outcomes.
Key Features Needed in a Population Health Solution
Advanced population health tools automate and personalize patient outreach, ensuring targeted, timely communication.
Here are some key features you’ll need:
Automated, Personalized Outreach Campaigns
Outreach campaigns use survey responses and EHR data to deliver tailored reminders for preventive care, medication adherence, referrals, and follow-ups. Patients can choose how they want to be contacted—email, text, phone, or direct mail—ensuring communication fits their preferences.
Metric and Response Tracking
These tools enable practices to monitor campaign performance and measure success against value-based care goals, such as MIPS scores, IQR metrics, or ACO shared savings programs. By tracking outcomes and engagement, practices can refine their outreach to improve both metrics and patient care.
Benefits of Choosing an All-in-One Patient Engagement Platform
While individual engagement solutions can bring improvements, relying on multiple vendors for each of the must-have solutions above often creates unnecessary complexity for both patients and staff. Disjointed systems lead to inconsistent experiences—patients might receive duplicate reminders or conflicting messages, while staff face inefficiencies navigating between separate tools. And without real-time data updates across systems, staff may lack the information they need to provide manage patients effortlessly.
Managing multiple vendors also increases administrative headaches and costs, from juggling contracts to troubleshooting integration issues. These inefficiencies drain resources and detract from what matters most—providing exceptional care.
An all-in-one patient engagement platform eliminates these challenges by uniting all solutions in a single platform that shares the same code base. The seamless connectivity between products ensures that data flows between solutions in real time, that they work together effortlessly, and that every aspect of the patient journey is coordinated.
For patients, this means a smoother, more consistent experience that builds trust and fosters engagement. For staff, it delivers the intended benefits of an engagement solution—simpler workflows, less time spent on manual tasks, and fewer technology headaches.
By choosing a unified platform, practices can unlock the full potential of patient engagement, improving outcomes for patients while driving efficiency and value for their organization.
To dive deeper into the benefits of using a comprehensive platform for patient engagement, explore our blog: What is a Patient Engagement Platform?
