News: Health systems see technology as key to improving patient access, survey says

Health system leaders are focused on using digital health technology during the coming year to improve patient access, according to the Top of Mind for Top Health Systems 2023 report from the Center for Connected Medicine (CCM) and KLAS Research. And they're most interested in using telehealth and AI to improve engagement and help patients find what they need, HealthLeaders reported.

The new report represents the thoughts of 61 leaders from 59 healthcare organizations and marks the second year in a row that patient access is at the top of the to-do list. Some 28% of those surveyed for this year's report rated it as the problem that has the greatest potential to be improved via digital health—and one that has been greatly impacted by the pandemic.

The biggest challenge to improving patient access, meanwhile, isn't technology, but the people behind the technology. That might be the patient who's not overly concerned about healthcare or healthcare providers and staff who aren't too thrilled with changing the status quo, according to HealthLeaders.

"Respondents specifically cited the difficulty of getting patients to be engaged in their own healthcare," the survey said. "Many also talked about organizational change management—in other words, guiding the people in healthcare organizations to buy into and make changes. This is particularly important for implementing patient access tools."

With that in mind, according to the survey, the highest priority for improving patient access is process change.

As for what technologies are considered important to improving patient access, telehealth tops the list, with 56% of survey respondents placing high value on virtual care. Close behind are the patient portal (55%), patient appointment reminders (55%), online bill paying (52%), online registration (49%), an online provider directory (47%), and patient scheduling reminders (46%).

Those top technologies also have their drawbacks. Patient portals are considered the baseline technology for interacting with patients, but patient adoption has been low. Patient self-scheduling technology is considered vital to meeting the needs of today's consumers, yet health systems are reporting problems with achieving provider buy-in and finding the right technology that can handle such a complex task. And while telehealth technology is considered effective and improves patient access, there are problems ensuring that access, ranging from broadband issues to a lack of resources for underserved communities.

The survey also found that:

• 65% of health system executives see price transparency and cost estimation as important facets of patient access, but almost all say they’re compelled to do so by federal regulations, rather than a desire to improve the patient experience. And most of those surveyed say the biggest challenge to delivering price transparency is the complexity of determining a patient's bill.
• A little more than half of health executives are using AI for patient access, and close to 70% believe it will be important in the future in improving access.
• Telehealth use has decreased since the pandemic, with most organizations reporting using it for less than 20% of appointments. Patient convenience is the most cited benefit of telehealth, and many want to use it more often, but the uncertain reimbursement landscape is the biggest obstacle to growth.
• Most health system leaders surveyed say telehealth is adequately addressing physician workflow and care delivery needs, though roughly one-third say the technology isn't effective, mainly because it doesn't integrate with the EHR or there are too many solutions on the market. Most of those surveyed do feel that telehealth is adequately meeting patient experience needs.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in HealthLeaders. To read the full survey report, click here.