By Jake Hugo
If you’re a physical therapist, you know that patient engagement is the key to success. It’s also one of the most challenging aspects of running a practice. Patient engagement software can help. Here are three ways that this physical therapy patient engagement software can help increase your patients’ engagement with their treatment plan and with their recovery process.
Empower patients with education & guidance
Patients need to be educated about their condition and how to manage it. They should also be given guidance through the process of recovery, especially if they are not doing as well as expected. Physicians are busy people who may not have time to answer all questions. They may also have different ideas about what constitutes a normal progression of treatment, so you must empower your patients with information from a variety of sources—including yourself.
Keep patients engaged outside of the clinic
It’s important to keep patients engaged during their time in your clinic, but it’s equally important to keep them engaged on their own time as well. Physical therapy patient engagement software can help you do this by providing patients with tools that can help them stay motivated on their own time and track their progress outside of the clinic.
For example, if you have a mobile app for patients, they can use that app to log in daily or weekly and record how often they are exercising at home or working on specific exercises outlined by you. Then when they come into your clinic next week, your receptionist will see all of this data and be able to tell whether or not the patient is staying on track with his or her plan.
The same goes for web-based solutions—if a patient has access to online messaging, he or she could send messages back and forth with other patients who are going through similar physical therapy experiences and share tips and stories about what works best for them. This type of communication not only helps build rapport between individuals in the same situation but also increases overall participation within the community itself.
Be a source of personalized motivation
As you know, motivation is one of the most important factors in healing and recovery after an injury or surgery. This means physical therapists must find ways to keep their patients motivated throughout their treatment process. With physical therapy patient engagement software, you can provide personalized motivation that keeps each patient interested and engaged with their exercises. The software allows you to talk directly with your patients through text messages, audio recordings, and video tutorials so that they feel like they’re getting individualized attention from you even when they’re not at your office.
Conclusion
Technology continues to advance at a fast pace, and businesses seeking to stay relevant must implement the latest innovations. Physical therapy is no different, which is why technology should be used to help patients and increase engagement. This is where physical therapy patient engagement software comes in. It can not only help to engage patients, but also help retain them, which is essential to the health of any physical therapy clinic.
