The 2022 Digital Health Most Wired (DHMW) survey assessed and recognized a record 38,800+ hospitals and health systems worldwide on their digital health capabilities and usage across eight key categories, including Infrastructure, Security, Interoperability and Innovation. Of these categories, Patient Engagement has the greatest impact on the overall DHMW score, reflecting the increased movement of hospitals and health systems to more patient-centered operational models.
While rebounding from the pandemic emerged as the overall top theme from the 2022 DHMW survey, our data clearly suggests efforts to empower patients via digital tools accelerated as healthcare providers responded to COVID-driven challenges such as lockdowns, quarantines, at-capacity health facilities and infection fear among all involved parties. As providers worked to address these challenges and enhance the patient’s digital experience, DHMW scores moved up evidenced by the expanded number and scope of digital services offered to patients.
A new report highlights trends emerging from the DHMW Patient Engagement (PE) category and includes insights on how and why organizations have improved their performance in this area and what the future might hold for patient empowerment/engagement via digital health.
Healthcare organizations (HCOs) participating in the 2022 DHMW survey generally lifted their PE scores (scale = levels 1 to 10) from previous years. The PE distribution of HCOs for the current year showed most survey participants (74%) scoring between levels 5 and 8. While almost 29% of organizations scored below level 5, an impressive 11% of participants achieved levels 9 or 10.
The findings reveal a high degree of agreement in the array of digital health tools used to support an HCO’s patient engagement efforts, noted Lea Chatham, VP of marketing for Gozio. With about 80% of the patient empowerment related technologies considered in the DHMW survey common to most organizations, she suggested many patients now expect HCOs to provide certain patient empowerment tools, such as text messaging and online scheduling.
Another factor is that much of the industry has been focusing on and improving patient engagement. “When we look at selling into this market, a driving factor is that providers are likely in a competitive environment” says Gozio CEO Joshua Titus. Responding to the providers’ increased PE scores, he reported on data from a Gozio client revealing that 32% of patients using online scheduling solutions were new users to that provider. This suggests providers offering the digital tools patients want are in a much better position to win new business from their competitors.
To get more insights from this new report, download it now.
