Chronic diseases—such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and arthritis—affect 60% of adults in the United States, with 40% of this group managing two or more conditions simultaneously. These conditions significantly impact quality of life and account for nearly 90% of the $4.5 trillion spent annually on healthcare, according to the CDC.
With stakes this high, ensuring patients are engaged and empowered between visits is essential. Engaged patients are more likely to follow care plans, make informed decisions, and experience better outcomes.
For healthcare providers, the responsibility lies in creating patient engagement strategies that foster meaningful connections, particularly for those managing chronic diseases. Strong engagement bridges the gaps caused by fragmented systems and helps improve health outcomes.
Let’s take a closer look at why patient engagement is pivotal for chronic condition management.
The Challenges of Managing Chronic Conditions
Managing chronic conditions presents unique challenges for both patients and providers. For patients, the time commitment required to regularly visit doctors, undergo treatments, and make ongoing lifestyle changes can feel overwhelming. Altering daily routines to adopt healthier habits and adhere to care plans consistently demands a high level of motivation and discipline—often without immediate results.
Providers, on the other hand, face the equally daunting task of managing these patients over extended periods. Chronic disease management is a long-term commitment, and much of a patient’s time is spent outside the office. Providers need effective ways to engage and communicate with patients between visits to ensure care plans are followed and bad habits don’t creep back in.
Adding to the complexity, patients with chronic conditions often see multiple doctors, creating a fragmented care experience. For patients, this can be overwhelming—they may feel confused by conflicting information, unclear about next steps, or unsure which provider to turn to for specific concerns.
This is where patient engagement becomes a vital tool for empowering patients with the information they need and guiding them through their next steps.
5 Patient Engagement Tips for Managing Chronic Conditions
As mentioned above, a well-planned patient engagement strategy is essential for effectively managing chronic conditions. Engaging patients not only improves their adherence to treatment plans but also enhances their overall response to care. Use these five tips to encourage patients to take an active role in managing their health.
Tip #1: Send Appointment Reminders for Timely, Consistent Care
For patients managing chronic diseases, attending regular doctor visits is non-negotiable. These appointments are critical for monitoring progress, adjusting treatment plans, and ensuring health outcomes stay on track. However, the frequency of these visits can lead to appointment fatigue, causing patients to overlook or delay scheduling important follow-ups.
Missed or delayed appointments can have serious consequences, including worsening conditions and higher healthcare costs due to the need for more intensive interventions. Automated appointment reminders address this challenge by taking the guesswork out of the process—reminding patients not only of upcoming appointments but also when it’s time to schedule their next visit.
Best Practices for Sending Automated Reminders:
- Use customizable, automated reminders across multiple channels, such as text, email, or phone calls.
- Include scheduling prompts for patients due for follow-ups to ensure continuity of care.
- Personalize reminders with key details, such as appointment time, location, and purpose, to reduce confusion and improve attendance.
Tip #2: Use Educational Outreach to Promote Health Literacy and Self-Management
For patients to successfully manage a chronic condition, they need a clear understanding of their condition and how their actions impact it—whether positively or negatively. Yet, low health literacy remains a significant barrier, making it challenging for many patients to follow treatment plans or adopt necessary lifestyle changes.
Proactive educational outreach bridges this gap by providing patients with the knowledge, tools, and resources they need to manage their condition effectively. It shifts the burden from patients navigating complex health information on their own to a guided, supportive approach that empowers them to take control of their health with confidence.
Best Practices for Providing Educational Outreach:
- Share tailored educational materials through patients’ preferred communication channels, such as text, email, or engagement tools they already use, like their patient portal.
- Incorporate engaging tools like videos, quizzes, or digital guides to simplify complex concepts.
- Align outreach with awareness months (e.g., Diabetes Awareness) to deliver timely, condition-specific education.
- Offer two-way communication to answer questions and provide ongoing support.
Note: In Tip 4, we’ll also cover how to automate the delivery of targeted educational materials based on patient behavior, offering a more personalized approach to patient education.
Tip #3: Send Post-Visit Surveys to Improve the Patient Experience
Patients managing chronic conditions visit your office more frequently than most, making their feedback invaluable. Post-visit surveys provide a candid look into what your practice is doing well and where there’s room for improvement. This feedback can help you identify gaps in the patient experience and ensure your services align with patient expectations.
When used strategically, surveys allow you to tailor future engagements, enhancing satisfaction and building stronger patient relationships over time.
Best Practices for Sending Post-Visit Surveys:
- Send surveys promptly after visits to capture fresh, relevant feedback.
- Focus on actionable questions, such as satisfaction with care or clarity of instructions.
- Use survey results to refine services and personalize follow-up communications.
Tip #4: Pair Surveys with Automated Interventions to Close Care Gaps
When engaging patients with chronic conditions, surveys should go beyond measuring satisfaction. They should also be used to capture patient-reported outcomes specific to each patient’s condition, providing valuable insights into care plan adherence, symptoms, and overall health between appointments.
When paired with automated workflows, survey responses can trigger timely interventions to address care gaps in real time. This proactive approach keeps patients on track with their treatment plans and ensures they receive the support they need before issues escalate.
Best Practices for Pairing Surveys with Automated Interventions:
- Use targeted surveys to monitor chronic condition management, such as medication adherence or symptom progression.
- Automate workflows to act on survey responses and prevent care gaps.
- Example 1: If a patient reports missed medication doses, send a reminder or notify the care team to follow up.
- Example 2: If a patient reports symptoms like shortness of breath, prompt them to schedule an appointment or seek urgent care.
Surveys combined with automation create a seamless way to anticipate patient needs and provide timely interventions. With the right patient engagement platform, this approach can transform chronic disease management into a more proactive, patient-centered process.
Tip# 5. Combine Your Patient Engagement Strategies for Holistic Engagement
Managing chronic conditions requires ongoing support, regular check-ins, and consistent communication. A holistic approach to patient engagement ensures patients have the tools, information, and guidance they need at every step of their care journey. By combining the previously mentioned strategies, providers can create a feedback loop that strengthens the patient-provider relationship and helps patients stay on track with their treatment plans.
Here’s an example of how a holistic strategy can support a patient managing a chronic condition:
Maria is managing Type 2 diabetes, a chronic condition that requires regular monitoring, medication adherence, and lifestyle changes. Let’s walk through how a holistic engagement strategy can support Maria on her journey:
Step 1: A Reminder to Stay on Track
Maria receives an automated appointment reminder via text and email, notifying her of an upcoming check-in with her provider. The message includes a rescheduling option, ensuring Maria can easily adjust the appointment if necessary. With her busy schedule, this reminder helps her prioritize her health and avoid missing a critical follow-up.
Step 2: Education to Empower
While checking her patient portal to confirm she didn’t have any outstanding balances, Maria notices a new educational resource tailored to her condition. She watches a short video on managing blood sugar levels and reviews a guide on balancing nutrition with medication. Equipped with this information, Maria writes down a few questions about her recent blood sugar readings to discuss with her provider during the appointment.
Step 3: Feedback to Track Progress
Several weeks after her visit, Maria receives a survey asking about her most recent blood sugar reading. She enters the reading, which falls below her provider’s recommended range. This information is automatically shared with her provider.
Step 4: Personalized Follow-Up
At the same time, Maria’s survey response flags her blood sugar reading as a potential concern and prompts her to schedule a follow-up appointment to reassess her care plan. She also receives a follow-up message through the patient portal with tailored educational materials on stabilizing blood sugar levels and tips for staying consistent with her medication. A link is included to make scheduling her next appointment quick and easy.
Maria appreciates the proactive outreach, which helps her feel supported and ensures her condition stays on track.
Conclusion
Managing chronic conditions is a long-term commitment that requires continuous support, proactive communication, and seamless coordination. By combining patient engagement strategies like appointment reminders, educational outreach, surveys, and automated follow-ups, providers can empower patients to take control of their health while improving outcomes and strengthening trust.
To explore the technologies that make these seamless patient experiences possible, check out our blog: What is a Patient Engagement Platform.
