For many seniors, the choice to move to a nursing home or an assisted living facility is not an easy one to make.  For a loved one, family involvement and support during the transition to assisted living can have a major impact on the quality of life of the resident and on the interactions between family and staff during the resident’s stay.

Unlike perhaps a decade ago, today most seniors are becoming just as tech-savvy as millennials. This trend will only increase into the future.  And this means, the way today’s and tomorrow’s seniors communicate and interact are expected to be far more reliant on digital technologies.

Patient portals are recognized as a favorable platform to support patient engagement and communication. They are designed to allow interaction between patients and the family in real time. This allows for better communication, transparency and instant access to information specific to the patient and family.

There are many benefits, as well as challenges that go along with implementing a patient engagement portal at your nursing home or assisted living facility.

Challenges:

• Healthcare data/privacy security concerns
• Effort required in signing up patients. Most patients according to resources are difficult to convince.
• Effective usability and utilization of the portal

Benefits:

• Facilitates family involvement

            -Enhances communication between patients, family as well as staff members

            -Improves better relationships between family, patients and staff

• Transparency

            -Family has access to resident’s schedules, events, daily activities etc. helps family to stay connected to resident’s  lives

            -Great sense of trust that loved ones are being taken care of

• Accurate patient information
• Allows patients to access their own records and can make them more informed

CareConnect Hub

Dunn Solutions has developed CareConnect Hub, a patient engagement portal that provides long term care facilities and hospices the family portal that residents, patients and families need to stay connected to look after their loved ones.

Conclusion

Nursing homes and senior living facilities need to continue to secure electronic medical records, messaging, mobile health tools etc.  All of this plays a role in ensuring that their customers are properly engaged with their health.  Investing in patient engagement pays off and all nursing homes and senior living facilities should be looking at how they can best adopt and integrate a patient engagement portal into their future operations. With stronger patient engagement, the quality of healthcare outcomes will improve.