Patient engagement is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot these days. Depending on your role, it might mean making a personal connection with a patient, having a process for engaging a patient in communication over time, or creating services that keep patients returning to the practice to work on their goals.

Regardless of what the scope is, creating engaged patients is one of our top priorities because it is indisputable that engaged patients are better off.

Engaged patients are:

• More likely to perform self-management behaviors ¹
• More likely to use self-management services ¹
• More likely to report higher medication adherence ²
• More likely than doctors to initiate discussions of symptoms possibly related to medication use ³
• Better equipped to be involved in shared decision-making technologies ⁴

As a result, engaged patients have better outcomes:

• They are 10 times more likely to have high satisfaction scores ²
• They are five times more likely to have high quality of life scores ²
• They have better functional status ⁴

For me, greater engagement is good for my patients AND it gives me greater job satisfaction as a clinician. When I engage with my patients, I learn more about each patient as an individual so that I can recommend an intervention that has a higher likelihood of working for him or her.

I see engagement as the way to deliver self-management education that is both patient-centered and evidence-based.

We all have strategic initiatives that we’re focusing on and they can seem overwhelming. But big changes start with small steps. Make a difference for your patients and for yourself by trying a couple of these simple approaches today:

1. It is easy to get focused on the most critical symptoms of the day. Try taking a step back first and ask: “What can we do today to make your life with diabetes better/easier/happier?”

2. A key to successful engagement is avoiding “disengagement” which can happen when you ask for behavior changes that are difficult to make. Ask your patient for a healthy behavior/activity that they can ADD to their lives rather than asking them to eliminate something right away.

Do you have any engagement tactics that work really well for you? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section!

References:

1. Hibbard JH, Stockard J, Mahoney ER, Tusler M. Developments of the Patient Activation Measure (PAM): conceptualizing and measuring activation in patients and consumers. Health Services Research, 2004; 39: 1005-26.
2. Mosen DM, Schmittdiel J, Hibbard J, et al. Is Patient Activation Associated with Outcomes of Care for Adults with Chronic Conditions? Journal of Ambulatory Care, 2007; 30(1): 21-9.
3. Golombetal BA. Physician Response to Patient Reports of Adverse Drug Effects: Implications for Patient-Targeted Adverse Effect Surveillance. Drug Safety, 2007; 30(8): 669–75.
4. Berwick D. What ‘Patient-Centered’ Should Mean: Confessions of an Extremist. Health Affairs, July/August 2009; 28(4): w555-65.