In the era of digital healthcare, patient engagement has emerged as a key focus for healthcare providers. The ability to actively involve patients in their own health and care has shown promising results in improving outcomes and overall satisfaction. However, to truly transform the healthcare landscape, we must move beyond patient engagement and embrace collaboration as an essential element. At Delve Health, we feel collaboration is crucial in digital healthcare because of how it can revolutionize the way we deliver and receive health services.
Empowering Patients Through Collaboration
While patient engagement emphasizes active involvement, collaboration takes it a step further by establishing a partnership between patients and healthcare providers. Collaboration empowers patients by making them equal partners in the decision-making processes regarding their own health. By actively involving patients in their care plans, healthcare providers and clinical researchers can gain valuable insights, enhance treatment adherence and improve patient outcomes.
Enhanced Communication and Information Exchange
In a digital healthcare and eClinical solutions ecosystem, collaboration promotes seamless communication and information exchange among all stakeholders—including patients, caregivers, healthcare and clinical research professionals. Through secure digital platforms, like Delve Health’s end-to-end platform, patients can easily share relevant health information, such as medical records, test results and symptoms with their providers. This exchange of information enables more accurate diagnoses, personalized treatment plans and timely interventions.
Interdisciplinary Care Coordination
Collaboration in digital healthcare, decentralized clinical trials (DCTs) and hybrid studies extends beyond the patient-provider relationship and encompasses interdisciplinary care coordination. With a collaborative approach, healthcare professionals from different specialties can work together, share expertise and make informed decisions collectively. This multidisciplinary collaboration minimizes the risk of medical errors, improves care transitions and ensures holistic and patient-centered care.
Leveraging Technology for Collaborative Care
Digital healthcare and eClinical solutions play a pivotal role in facilitating collaboration. Telehealth/telemedicine, secure messaging via SMS and messaging apps and passively gathering data via wearable devices enable real-time communications and information sharing, bridging the gap between patients and their providers. These technology solutions, like Delve Health’s fully-customizable, web-based app, allow for remote patient monitoring, virtual consultations and remote patient education, fostering continuous collaboration irrespective of geographical constraints—removing social determinants of health (SDOH) barriers and allowing patients to have access to quality healthcare regardless of where they live.
Engaging Patients in Research and Innovation
Collaboration in digital healthcare extends beyond individual patient care to research and innovation. By involving patients in research initiatives, healthcare providers can gain unique perspectives, valuable feedback and insights into patient experiences. Collaborative research and innovation efforts like ours, lead to the development of patient-centric solutions, improved healthcare and clinical research practices, as well as enhancements to the overall quality of patient care in any setting.
We are always striving for and measuring our success against how high patient engagement seems to be; however, collaboration takes this a step further by transforming the way healthcare and virtual clinical trials are delivered. By fostering a joint-effort among patients, healthcare providers and interdisciplinary teams, we can create a healthcare ecosystem that thrives on shared knowledge, patient empowerment and improved patient outcomes. Embracing digital healthcare technologies and eClinical solutions through promoting a collaborative culture will unlock new possibilities, paving the way for a patient-centered, efficient and innovative healthcare system. Together, let us transcend patient engagement and embrace collaboration as the cornerstone of the transformation of clinical trials and healthcare—to be accessible by all who wish to participate.
