Communicating with the patients during times of uncertainty can significantly alleviate patient anxieties and address their questions and concerns.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped and radically transformed the entire healthcare landscape. It has altered how physicians practice medicine, primarily how they communicate with and reach out to the most vulnerable patient communities. Leveraging innovative health IT tools such as Electronic Health Records (EHRs), healthcare organizations expand their reach to the historically underserved and vulnerable patients during the coronavirus pandemic.

Interestingly, the EHRs already have built-in capabilities to increase patient engagement, especially since the pandemic has shifted the healthcare focus to telehealth visits. For instance, EHRs can generate lists of patients that meet specific criteria, referred to as the patient pursuit lists. These then allow the physicians to tailor their health programs to meet the particular needs of these patients. Similarly, EHRs can generate lists of patients in high-risk groups, such as those on immunosuppressive therapies. The physicians can then prioritize who needs to be seen almost immediately, moving down to the less high-risk patients.

Once these vulnerable patient communities are identified, physicians and practice staff can prepare outbound communications in emails or texts to improve patient engagement. The patients feel confident that their physicians are looking out for them and that their healthcare needs will finally be addressed. These messages can include important information such as recommendations for staying healthy, answers to FAQs regarding telehealth visits, and other educational material that might be deemed critical for their wellbeing.

If you minus EHRs from the entire scenario, you might fall victim to extensive administrative burden in the form of patient scheduling. You might also have to make numerous outbound phone calls to reach out to these vulnerable patients because they might not answer unknown calls.

Here is how EHRs can help:

• EHRs help alleviate the digital divide. They help address the differences across demographic groups in terms of access to and the use of healthcare technology.
• EHRs can help spread awareness by engaging with vulnerable patient communities.
• EHRs can empower these patient communities to engage in self-care to improve their health outcomes.
• EHRs can help collect data on individual and community health status and help devise effective healthcare programs accordingly.
• EHRs can significantly aid in analysis, diagnosis, and investigation of public health concerns, such as the novel coronavirus.
• EHRs highlight the at-risk populations and help identify opportunities for targeted interventions.
• EHRs can monitor the community prevalence of chronic conditions.
• EHRs can help identify the social determinants for COVID-19 disease.
• HER data mining techniques can potentially identify new risk factors for the COVID-19 disease.

Communicating with the patients during times of uncertainty can significantly alleviate patient anxieties and address their questions and concerns. Interestingly, this new work technique can be extended beyond the pandemic to dictate the future of healthcare communication. Even when the pandemic is over, telehealth will remain deeply rooted as an integral component of the healthcare landscape. Hence, reaching out to vulnerable patient groups, such as those residing in rural areas, will always remain a priority of healthcare providers. And EHRs will continue doing their magic in reaching out to these communities.