Improving Chronic Care Management for Patients & Physicians in 2023

Posted on January 5, 2023

Every care facility in the world is always on the look for new ways to improve its chronic care management processes. With this aspect of care responsible for over 86% of US healthcare expenditure, it’s a no-brainer why CCM is becoming an increasingly critical area of focus for physicians. So how can we go about improving chronic care management in 2023 not just from the patient’s perspective but from the doctor’s side as well? Our guide today discusses the top solutions that will reap benefits for both sides of the care equation. Take a look:

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1. Tackling patient no-shows using telehealth technologies

The healthcare industry experiences between 12 to 80% no-shows for patient appointments. When chronically ill patients miss check-ups with their doctors, this can have far-reaching consequences for them, including:

1. Delayed symptom detection
2. The continuity of care is severed
3. It becomes challenging to monitor medication efficacy as well

Physicians and hospitals, on the other hand, have much to lose with no-shows as well. A Forbes report estimates that each unused time slot results in a loss of $200 for the practice, with the American healthcare sector losing $150 billion to no shows annually.
So how do you handle a patient no-show? Well, there are several ways to remedy this but most of them require quite a lot of manual intervention save for one: virtual care or telehealth. This technology is key to cracking down on patient no shows by way of alerts and personalized reminders and even virtual check-ins by the physicians themselves. As a result, the continuity of care remains uninterrupted and physicians can sort out patient sets promptly. It’s a win-win for either party

2. Virtual visits minimize risk for patients & boost productivity for doctors

Chronically ill patients often have to contend with many painful symptoms, which can further be aggravated by strenuous activity such as constantly having to travel long distances for a doctor’s appointment.
Virtual visits can spare them the trouble, energy, and expenses of doing so. Instead, patients can access quality chronic care from afar while recuperating peacefully in their homes. The need to travel is reduced greatly due to the possibility of an at-home care model. But that’s not the only way virtual visits minimize risks for patients. There’s also reduced time spent in waiting rooms hence lesser exposure to healthcare acquired infections.
Doctors too have much to benefit from virtual visits. Physicians can spare travel expenses, and become more productive, with virtual care technology allowing them to tend to many more patients than it would be possible to do so through in-person appointments.

3. Finding and solving social health factors

Health outcomes are greatly influenced by social determinants which most healthcare systems often overlook. Yet, these carry even greater weight and impact when it comes to chronic care management.
Some of the social determinants that we can longer keep turning a blind eye to if we want to improve healthcare include:

1. Transport problems
2. Healthcare inaccessibility
3. Literacy and language
4. Safe housing
5. Economic challenges and much more

Of course, RPM or virtual care alone can’t fix the reality on the ground. But it’s certainly a step in the right direction toward eliminating some of these social determinants from the equation. Nonetheless, it may also take the intervention of governments and private stakeholders to ensure a level playing field for patients despite these issues.

4. Using real-time data for better health outcomes

Chronic care management requires round-the-clock monitoring of the patient to ensure they are getting the required amount of rest, sticking to medication routines, and recording symptoms. However, for physicians, these oversight tasks can be overwhelming, especially when a practice is dealing with several chronically ill patients at a time.
Improving chronic care in this regard might entail providing automated near-real-time health data insights, which proves beneficial for physicians in the sense that some of the clinical workflow duties get taken over by remote patient monitoring technology. Patients, meanwhile, enjoy prompt medical intervention which means faster relief from persistent symptoms, leading to a richer quality of life.

5. Smoothening care transitions

We’ve talked a great deal about the benefits of virtual visits. However, in some cases, these aren’t always a feasible solution as some patients may need to get in-person examinations from time to time. But there’s still a way telehealth may be able to come to the rescue, more so when we’re talking about care transitions.
For example, this technology can better help in unifying acute and primary care. It becomes possible to pick out or spot patients with high-utilization patterns, then provide support in terms of:

1. Helping patients better understand their condition
2. Ensuring patients have the right (and adequate) medication
3. Affording convenient options to set appointments with physicians, and much more

When that happens, then care transition streamlines, resulting in the improvement of chronic care management on so many levels.

6. Personalizing clinician workflows and patient records

When a physician’s chronic care management workflow is customized or personalized, they reap several benefits. For one, it becomes easy to automate iterative work processes which eventually ensures accelerated productivity and frees up time for other duties.
Additionally, it becomes a lot easier for clinical workflows to strategize on and monitor chronic care management plans. With much better oversight, the quality of various care management processes also improves as well.

7. Streamlining patient-provider communication

Patient-provider communication has always been a vertical affair, and it’s time we revised how we go about it if we are to improve chronic care management henceforth. Telehealth solutions such as Cardiac Rhythm may once again be the solution here, affording multiple communication avenues for patients and physicians by way of:

1. Text
2. Audio calls
3. Video calls, etc.

With improved communication comes lower readmission rates, higher satisfaction, and lower mortality for chronic patients, which is good news for physicians as well.

Enhance your CCM in 2023 with Cardiac Rhythm!

Is your hospital’s chronic care management leaving much to be desired? It’s about time your practice partnered with a proven CCM service to ensure more productivity for your physicians and better health outcomes for your patients. Elevate your quality of cardiac care today, and make 2023 a healthier and more profitable year for your patients and practice. Feel free to explore our website to learn more about the bespoke cardiac care management solutions we often for both patients and physicians.