Three Key Considerations for Leveraging Digital Health Tools to Support Patient Engagement

Diabetes and other chronic diseases are the leading causes of death and disability in the United States and 86% of the nation’s $ 2.7 trillion in annual healthcare expenditures are attributed to chronic disease patients. Digital health technology has documented potential in reducing healthcare costs and improving health outcomes for patients.

In this blog post in partnership with AcademyHealth, MITRE’s Susan Mbawuike highlights three key considerations for increasing patient engagement in digital health tools the health industry could leverage to improve health outcomes for chronic disease patients. The three considerations, described further in the blog post include:

1. Support and leverage patient-centered research in digital health tools
2. Ensure the security of digital health technology
3. Apply health communication strategies to inform the development of digital health tools

Related resources:

• Improving patient outcomes through standard health records
• Empowering patients in their own healthcare
• Paving the pathway to patient data ownership and better health
• Improving care through effective payment models
• Making sense of data for healthcare providers
• Applying ethical decision making for consumer-generated data use in healthcare