High patient engagement can bring lots of benefits to your physical therapy practice. As this article on Clinicient points out, engaged patients are more likely to lead to better outcomes, which reflect positively on your service. Thus, this can help promote your business and bring in even more patients. As such, it’s vital that you look at ways of increasing patient engagement at all times.
If you want to see more engagement from your patients, then here are four tips to help you out:
#1 Use Visual Aids
Visual aids are anything that helps your patients visualize what you’re talking about. As an example, if you’re trying to explain parts of the human anatomy, it’s much easier if you have a model or skeleton. Instead of throwing a load of technical words at them, you can show them what’s wrong. Detailed posters are also a great idea. You can even use your patient as a visual aid by putting them in front of a mirror. When people can see what’s wrong with them, it’s a lot easier for them to be engaged and understand what’s going on.
#2 Create a Mailing List
Don’t treat your patients and then leave them in the dark until they come for a follow-up appointment. Instead, keep everyone informed and updated via regular emails. Create a mailing list of your patients so you can send email reminders for upcoming appointments, tips & tricks to improve their posture or even new exercises they could try out. It keeps them engaged by supplying them with knowledge and advice – as well as reminding them that they have an appointment coming up!
#3 Work on Your Online Presence
Building an online presence is a smart way of increasing patient engagement. Create blog posts on your website so people can go there and find useful pieces of information. Grow your social media presence and post updates on there – uploading videos of exercises is a great way to do this. Give people a reason to follow you online, and this boosts their engagement with your practice. Whenever they scroll through Facebook or Instagram, they’ll see your posts and be intrigued to look at what you’re saying.
#4 Use the AC Health App
The AC Health app is a brilliant patient engagement tool for physical therapists. In essence, it lets you prescribe custom treatment plans for all your patients, and they can access them from their smartphones. It’s a quick and easy way for them to check what they need to do, view videos of any rehab exercises, and get sent reminders when it’s time to do their exercises. When compared to other apps, it sees a far better increase in patient engagement across the board. The costs of the app are minimal, and you can try it free of charge for 2 months. Test it out, see how it helps engagement, then pay the full price for it.
All four of these ideas help you increase patient engagement with your practice. As a physical therapist, it’s important to have patients who are keen to make themselves better. It makes them more likely to follow your treatment plan and keep coming back for more appointments until the issue is solved.
