Note to readers: This is the fifth post in a six-part series exploring the economics of digital health.
As the aging population rapidly increases, healthcare systems worldwide face unprecedented challenges.
Older adults are increasingly recognizing the role that technology can play in enabling a healthy life, particularly among those over 70. While still skeptical of AI, for older adults with health issues, digital services can be beneficial – if used to their full potential.
Xealth is at the forefront of transforming care for aging populations, utilizing innovative digital tools to enhance accessibility, monitoring, and personalized healthcare management. Xealth’s mission is to improve patient care through digital health solutions, making healthcare more efficient and effective for older adults.
The Role of Digital Tools in Healthcare
Digital tools make healthcare delivery more efficient, accessible, and personalized. For aging populations, these innovations address several critical challenges:
- Accessibility to healthcare: Telehealth and digital platforms make healthcare services more accessible, reducing the need for physical visits.
- Medication management: Digital tools help manage medication schedules, reducing the risk of missed doses or drug interactions.
- Chronic disease management: Continuous monitoring and data collection allow for better management of chronic conditions.
- Health literacy and information overload: Educational content can be tailored to individual needs, making it easier for older adults to understand their health conditions and treatments.
- Emergency response: Digital tools can provide immediate emergency assistance, improving response times and outcomes.
Enhancing Accessibility with Xealth
One of the critical areas that Xealth significantly impacts is streamlining healthcare appointments.
Middle-aged women often face difficulties in managing healthcare appointments and receiving adequate care. UPMC encountered these issues head-on and sought a solution to streamline its processes.
Partnering with Xealth, they automated the distribution of educational content. This strategic move reduced the time spent on appointments and enhanced the quality of provider-patient interactions. The results were impressive:
- 40% content open rate
- 20% patient engagement
Improved Monitoring and Engagement
Continuous health monitoring is crucial for older adults, and digital tools are vital in this area.
At Mass General Brigham, there was a notable backlog of research requests, coupled with the need for effective integration with their Electronic Health Records (EHR).
Xealth provided a seamless solution by integrating educational materials distribution for their falls-prevention program. This initiative saw very high engagement, with 45% open rates, effectively streamlining patient engagement in clinical research and enhancing the overall patient experience.
Personalized Healthcare Management
Personalized digital education can improve older people’s health outcomes by providing tailored information and support.
Allina Health faced the challenge of low recall of Medicare Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) information, negatively impacting their HCAHPS and HOS survey scores.
To address this, they leveraged Xealth’s capabilities to distribute educational content consistently through various channels. This approach led to promising patient engagement:
- Over 50% open rates – reaching nearly 37,000 patients
- 42% click rates
Facilitating Advanced Care Planning
Advanced care planning is essential to ensure patients’ wishes are respected, and digital tools can facilitate this process.
Organizations often struggle with the manual and labor intensive process of getting advanced care directives on file.
Xealth has simplified this by enabling providers to order appropriate educational materials, ACP documentation, or links to ACP vendors as needed. Providers can have a 30-minute face-to-face conversation with patients to meet CMS requirements and then place an EHR order for follow-up by the patient education team. Patients receive the necessary educational content, class sign-up links, or ACP vendor details instantly, streamlining the process and ensuring better compliance with advanced care planning.
Broader Impact on Healthcare Systems and Future Prospects
Digital health tools like Xealth are beneficial for patients and healthcare systems.
By reducing the burden on healthcare systems through automation and improved patient engagement, digital tools can lead to significant efficiency and cost savings.
The long-term benefits of the widespread adoption of digital health solutions are immense. As more healthcare providers embrace these technologies, the overall quality of care for aging populations will improve, leading to better health outcomes and more sustainable healthcare systems.
Embrace the Future of Elder Care
Xealth’s digital tools are revolutionizing care for aging populations by enhancing accessibility, continuous monitoring, and personalized healthcare management.
By addressing specific challenges older adults face, Xealth is helping to create a more efficient and effective healthcare system.
Request a demo today to see these innovations in action and explore how our solutions can transform your healthcare delivery.