Care teams, pharmacies, and healthcare organizations are under constant pressure to deliver seamless, coordinated care, yet many still rely on outdated communication systems that do not support these goals
When care teams spend more time collecting information and trying to reach patients than supporting the patients care needs, the impact is felt across the board. Patients can miss critical follow-ups, medication adherence can decline, and healthcare organizations face rising administrative burdens. Standard care management simply isn’t built to handle the demands of personalized patient care.
This is where digital care management tools can makes a difference. Digital solutions help healthcare teams and pharmacies provide proactive, coordinated, cost-effective care by streamlining communication, automating routine workflows, and gathering real-time patient insights.
In this blog, we’ll explore the benefits of digital care management and how solutions like SmartStory’s engagement platform can transform how specialty pharmacies and healthcare teams deliver care.
If you’re looking for an efficient way to manage patient engagement and adherence, keep reading—because the future of care management depends on it.
Challenges in Conventional Care Management
Standard care management relies on manual processes, fragmented systems, and outdated communication methods. These inefficiencies create administrative burdens for healthcare teams, increase costs, and lead to subpar patient outcomes. Here are some of the most pressing issues:
Fragmented Communication
Providers, pharmacy teams, and care coordinators often work in silos, leading to miscommunication, duplicated efforts, and inconsistent follow-ups. Important details fall through the cracks without a coordinated process to communicate and engage patients to easily manage their healthcare.
One study found that 80% of serious errors involve miscommunication during a patient’s care transition. These miscommunications contribute to unnecessary readmissions, costing the healthcare system an estimated $26 billion annually. Without an integrated platform to support care teams, patients can experience a variety of poor outcomes, such as non-adherence to medications or treatment plans and even delays in accessing preventative care.
Manual Tools
Standard care management engagement relies heavily on outdated, manual tools, such as sending letters via snail mail, that provide low visibility into patients engaging with the resources. These inefficient processes slow down care delivery and do not significantly impact the patient experience. Healthcare providers alone spend nearly 50% of their workday on administrative tasks rather than direct patient care.
Additionally, up to 30% of costs in the healthcare industry are attributed to administrative inefficiencies, with manual documentation playing a significant role, as reported by Health Affairs. When healthcare professionals are buried in paperwork, they have less time to focus on patient needs, leading to missed follow-ups, and reduced patient engagement in their care plans.
Limited Patient Engagement
Many care teams struggle to keep patients engaged in their preventative care routines. Without tools that provide proactive communication and education, patients often miss important screenings, vaccinations, and check-ups. Moreover, a lack of timely communication and education leaves patients uninformed, making it harder for care teams to keep them on track with treatment plans.
It is well documented in healthcare statistics that delayed preventative care results in avoidable healthcare expenses and poor health outcomes. For example.the World Health Organization reports that 50% of patients with chronic conditions do not take their medications as prescribed, leading to preventable complications.
High Costs and Inefficiencies
Outdated care management approaches are not effective for patients to navigate. A letter or phone call does not always close the gap for the patient and can often lead to additional follow-up necessary to address the gap. For example, calling a patient to educate them about the need to schedule a healthcare screening could be improved with the delivery of a digital engagement that leads the patient to access and schedule the screening test all in one initiative.
The U.S. spends nearly $4.5 trillion annually on care services, with a significant portion attributed to inefficiencies. Care teams continue to leverage manual processes that lead to financial strain without digital solutions that enable early intervention, proactive engagement, and automated workflows.
The challenges of standard care management highlight the urgent need for digital transformation. Technology provides the tools to streamline communication, automate administrative tasks, improve patient engagement, and reduce costs. Given these issues, let’s explore how digital care management benefits healthcare providers, payers, and patients.
The Benefits of Digital Care Management
Here’s how digital care management improves efficiency, engagement, and outcomes for care teams and pharmacy providers:
Improved Member Engagement
Engaged patients are healthier patients. Digital care management solutions create continuous touchpoints that keep members informed, motivated, and involved in their care. Features such as personalized mobile notifications, educational videos, secure messaging, and automated follow-ups empower patients to stay on track with medications, appointments, and lifestyle adjustments.
Care teams and pharmacies can significantly enhance adherence rates by delivering content that aligns with patient preferences—whether through SMS, email, or mobile-friendly platforms. Additionally, remote monitoring tools ensure patients receive timely interventions when necessary, reducing avoidable complications.
Enhanced Care Coordination
Fragmented care can lead to unnecessary tests, treatment delays, and higher costs.
By integrating patient specific data with automated communication workflows, healthcare organizations can coordinate with pharmacies to provide holistic care. Digital experiences can be leveraged to collect patient feedback beyond what is available in the traditional patient-level data sets of medical and pharmacy claims to enhance the care coordination delivery for a patient. As an example, a patient may need to involve a caregiver to coordinate their medication management needs and ensure proper information is shared to all parties involved for that patient’s care.
Reduced Healthcare Costs
Preventative care and early intervention play crucial roles in reducing healthcare costs. Digital tools help engage your most at-risk patients early on by identifying those patients and , enabling proactive interventions that prevent costly healthcare utilization, such as ER visits and hospital admissions.
Automation also reduces administrative overhead., automated appointment scheduling for virtual check-ins maximizes patient engagement and optimizes resources. By replacing inefficient manual processes with streamlined digital solutions, organizations and care teams can reduce overall operational costs while enhancing the quality of care.
Increased Workflow Efficiency
Administrative burdens take time away from patient care. Digital care management tools automate routine workflows, allowing pharmacists to focus on high-value patient interactions rather than paperwork.
Organizations can efficiently manage medication adherence follow-ups, such as prescription refill reminders, and dosage reminders alongside patient education initiatives by implementing automated engagement sequences. Patient assessments can assist care teams and pharmacy providers make timely, informed treatment decisions, ensuring a smoother workflow and improved patient support.
Leverage Data and Analytics
Data-driven insights are crucial in delivering personalized care in healthcare and pharmacy services. Using data and the life events impacting a patient’s healthcare journey can present opportunities to provide digital care management experiences when it makes the most sense. Real-time patient health insights, enable care teams and pharmacy providers to tailor treatments based on individual needs rather than standardized protocols.
For example, a patient who was just discharged from a hospital stay could be best supported by a communication to connect them to post-discharge consultation with a care coordinator versus promoting a cancer screening the patient is due to receive.
Improved Access to Care
Many patients encounter challenges accessing care, including geographic limitations, mobility issues, and time constraints. Digital care management support helps pharmacy providers and care teams bridge these gaps by offering virtual medication consultations, digital prescription management, and mobile health tools that improve accessibility.
For instance, diabetic patients in rural areas may struggle to access annual retinal eye exams. By promoting mobile testing services and coordinating these tests during specific dates and times in the patient's area, can significantly improve the likelihood that patients receive this crucial examination.
Patients can receive timely support without needing in-person visits, making it easier to manage chronic conditions, adhere to specialty medication regimens, and consult pharmacists or care coordinators for personalized guidance.
Increased Compliance and Security
Regulatory compliance is non-negotiable in healthcare, and engagement platforms must adhere to strict security standards. HIPAA-compliant solutions ensure that patient data remains protected, while automated documentation improves accuracy in meeting regulatory requirements.
Secure messaging, audit tracking, and encrypted storage safeguard sensitive patient information, reducing the risk of data breaches. Additionally, digital engagement platforms support reporting, making it easier for healthcare organizations, pharmacies, and care facilities to maintain compliance with industry regulations.
How SmartStory Helps with Digital Care Management
SmartStory Technologies enhances digital care management by providing a suite of advanced tools that improve patient engagement, streamline workflows, and support you in delivering personalized care here is how:
- Personalized Engagement: SmartStory’s Digital Engagement Platform delivers relevant content at the right time, using SmartPages, video education, and secure messaging to keep patients engaged in their care journey. We work with your assets to ensure all content is aligned with your communication standards.
- Seamless Care Coordination: With workflow automation and secure communications, SmartStory ensures that healthcare teams can collaborate effectively, reducing treatment delays and improving continuity of care.
- Cost Reduction: By optimizing clinical call centers and automating routine communications, SmartStory helps healthcare organizations lower operational costs while improving efficiency.
- Smarter Engagement: SmartStory’s team meets with your teams to map out your patient journeys allowing organizations to build customized, automated engagement sequences, ensuring that patients receive timely content.
- Data-Centric Approach: With dashboard engagement tracking and data-informed experiences, SmartStory empowers healthcare providers to make data-driven decisions that enhance patient outcomes.
- Secure and Compliant: Built with vigorous security protocols, SmartStory ensures HIPAA compliance while providing audit-ready documentation for regulatory adherence.
Integrating SmartStory’s innovative digital engagement tools allows care teams and specialty pharmacies to create more effective, patient-centered experiences.
Empower Your Care Team with SmartStory’s Digital Solutions
Ready to transform patient engagement and medication adherence? SmartStory ’s digital solutions equip pharmacy providers and care teams with the tools to enhance patient experiences, automate critical workflows, and improve outcomes while reducing administrative burdens.
With deep expertise in specialty pharmacy and healthcare environments, we integrate intelligent technology to meet your organization’s needs. From delivering personalized health content and automating prescription reminders to simplifying pharmacist-patient communication, SmartStory ensures every interaction is impactful and timely.
Our platform, built on Azure with AI-powered security monitoring, has achieved HITRUST r2 certification, ensuring the highest level of security while seamlessly integrating your existing systems.
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