With age, the necessity of medical care starts growing. The elderly persons often require frequent appointments with their physician in comparison to the younger ones. Patients over 50 years require more engagement than younger people. However, some physicians or caregivers habitually neglect elderly patients.
To improve elderly patient engagement, doctors or health care professionals need to take special care of elderly patients and listen to their problems with utmost care. However, you can try these five proven ways of engaging with the older one.
Five ways to improve elderly patient engagement
1. Listen to the elderly patients
Listening to each and every word of elderly patients is another best possible way to boost elderly patient engagement. In fact, listening to them not only improves the engagement but also helps you to find the possible solution based on their symptoms. You may generally notice that most of the medical staff avoid listening to their elderly patients that refer to ill-practice. It is always essential for every medical staff to stop practising this act ASAP. To build a successful patient engagement, you need to be more friendly with your aged patients.
2. Making the use of patient engagement technology for discharging the elderly
You should not be surprised if we say that many elderly patients leave the hospital beds without following the discharge instructions. We all know that with age, the body loses its immunity power to fight against the harmful pathogen. After getting discharged from the hospital, the patient's body remains too weak. So, there is a high possibility of catching secondary infection if the elderly fail to abide by the discharge instruction. It can give rise to frequent visits to the hospital.
Nowadays, with the help of an automated patient engagement solution, an elderly person can easily eliminate the pain of visiting the hospital frequently. Modern applications help to establish a two-way connection between the patients and the medical staff. In fact, they also get a time-to-time reminder for their medications even after discharge. It ensures a speedy recovery while relaxing at home.
3. Keep digital patient solutions and tools simple
Nowadays, the quickest way to communicate with a doctor or scheduling an appointment is by utilizing digital platforms. However, the complexity of the digital tool may create problems for the senior patient while consulting with the doctor about their medical conditions. So, to make elderly patient engagement better, you need to utilise those digital platforms on behalf of your aged parents or grandparents.
4. Recognise elderly patient barriers to Internet access
In this digitalised world, you have to keep yourself updated to be in the race. Nowadays, hospitals and healthcare sectors utilise digital patient engagement solutions to ease the entire cycle of patient engagement. However, there are many people who are not still aware of using the internet. They don’t even know the technical terminologies.
Besides, everyone doesn’t have a son or daughter to take care of them at the house. So, for them, it is always important for doctors and health care professionals to be more flexible. You need to understand the barriers that an elderly patient may have to face. You have to customize your services and solutions to build a robust elderly patient engagement.
5. Experiment with telemedicine options with elderly patients
One of the best ways to improve elderly patient engagement is to practice using telemedicine options. With the evolution of science and technologies, video communications, phone calls, online meetings, etc., have become common. You can easily utilise these means of communication by scheduling follow-ups and personal consultations with elderly patients.
Conclusion
Engaging older adults is necessary to provide them with a proper health care solution. You always need some proven patient engagement strategies for the seniors to make the engagement procedure much easier. We hope that the above-mentioned tips may help you. However, if you want to learn more about elderly patient engagement strategies, you may consult us.
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