Healthcare Consumer Engagement Files IPO Amid Surge in Digital Health Participation

What Is Healthcare Customer Engagement?

According to the annual Internet report released in May by Mary Meeker, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and known as the “Queen of the Internet,” the number of global smartphone users reached 2.1 billion in 2015, representing a 23% increase from 2014.

With the development of the internet and mobile information technology, many clients with healthcare needs are accessing relevant materials and literature through various channels, covering areas such as medical examinations, disease prevention, health maintenance, aesthetic medicine, and genetic testing. Meanwhile, patients’ willingness to actively participate in the treatment process is growing stronger, which has a positive impact on therapeutic outcomes and rehabilitation.

Consumer Engagement was first applied in the marketing industry. In March 2006, the Advertising Research Foundation introduced the concept of “Consumer Engagement” for the first time. In 2011, Hollebeek provided a clear definition: “the level of a customer’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral investment in specific interactive activities,” identifying these as the three key dimensions of consumer engagement. Applying the concept of “Consumer Engagement” to healthcare has given rise to what is now emphasized in the medical community as “Patient Engagement.”

“Healthcare Customer Engagement” refers to the process in which customers assume certain roles in acquiring healthcare products or services, investing resources such as intellect, energy, money, and emotions to meet their material, psychological, emotional, personalized, and self-actualization needs.

Primary Pathways for Customer Engagement

● Feedback Box, Telephone, Email

● Portal Websites, Online Consultations

● Healthcare Apps

● Remote monitoring devices, home wearable health devices

The Impact of Patient Engagement in Healthcare

Positive Impact

1. Leverage customers' subjective initiative

For a long time, healthcare users or patients have been viewed merely as passive recipients of services, with their significant role largely overlooked. In reality, they represent the most underutilized resource in healthcare and nursing, capable of playing a crucial part—on par with healthcare professionals—in mitigating medical risks and identifying solutions.

The advent of mobile technology has enabled patient engagement in healthcare.

For example, mobile health apps provide users with an effective way to track their health behaviors, such as exercise plans, daily nutrition logs, medication adherence, and key monitoring metrics like blood pressure readings. This information should be integrated into the health management programs of mobile app developers, providing valuable data support for clinicians studying consumers’ health status.

2. Enhancing the Doctor-Patient Relationship

The primary objective of integrating mobile devices and applications into the healthcare sector is to positively impact the health management plans of healthcare consumers.

Consumers require healthcare institutions to provide more precise services, with information exchange and immediate assistance being of paramount importance. As a rapid and convenient tool for search and access, the Internet and mobile applications can offer medical users extensive self-service information, such as directories of healthcare institutions, thereby facilitating information standardization and making it easier to query, summarize, and report.

This “interactivity” can foster healthy, trust-based relationships between consumers and health advisors. Leveraging the display and rating systems of mobile health platforms, physicians can provide more accurate decision-making guidance, making it no longer an elusive goal for consumers to find satisfactory doctors and establish long-term, in-depth connections.

3. Reduce Readmission Rates

Due to a lack of basic medical knowledge, healthcare clients often struggle to understand and adhere to treatment plans, leading to arbitrary dose reductions or discontinuation of medication. Alternatively, a passive approach to treatment may prolong the course of therapy, potentially resulting in disease deterioration and readmission, thereby increasing medical expenditures.

If patients actively engage in their care, understand potential issues that may arise during treatment, and discuss with their physicians how to mitigate these risks and impacts, hospital readmission rates can be reduced. Patients can also provide suggestions for improvement based on their individual circumstances, which helps enhance service efficiency.

Negative Impact

Currently, the prevailing view is that “healthcare customer engagement” does not necessarily guarantee a 100% improvement in consumer satisfaction and perceived quality of medical services, and may even have certain negative effects.

For instance, tools designed to incentivize patient engagement—such as tablets, smartphones, mobile apps, and digital medical devices—require a certain level of operational proficiency, which may pose adaptation challenges for elderly users. Many patients struggle to fulfill their responsibilities in areas such as health information communication and regular medication adherence, failing to fully understand their roles; this not only increases the workload for physicians but may even delay treatment. Furthermore, consumers may develop higher expectations and new psychological benchmarks for the quality of medical services, potentially leading to lower satisfaction ratings.

Measures to Encourage Customer Participation

Provide Humanized Services

Meeting patients’ health needs is the fundamental purpose of all medical practices. Therefore, healthcare professionals must shift their mindset, moving away from the outdated notion of “getting patients to comply with doctors” and establishing a patient-centered service philosophy.

In face-to-face medical services, healthcare providers should pay attention to their communication methods when interacting with patients. By engaging in empathetic communication, they can better understand patients’ preferences, family circumstances, and personality traits, thereby helping patients select the diagnostic and treatment options that best meet their needs.

Mobile app developers need to translate medical terminology into user-friendly language, convey accessible health information, and enhance text readability. Many disease management apps prioritize the professionalism and accuracy of medical content, often adopting structures and models from hospital electronic medical record (EMR) systems, with clinical practitioners drafting the medical terminology. However, overly complex “medical formatting” can deter users, making it difficult for them to sustain engagement.

A mobile health company has adopted a unique approach to address the obscurity of medical terminology. It employs writers from diverse backgrounds, such as clinicians, comedians, and teachers, to craft multiple versions of standard information. The company then tracks user responses to each version and selects the one with the highest engagement rate as the preferred language style for future communications.

Foster an Atmosphere of Customer Engagement

In public hospitals, medical schools, and community clinics, institutions and facilities such as “Shared Decision-Making Centers” and “Decision Aid Libraries” can be established to provide educational tools, including books and brochures on topics related to diseases and health services. Dedicated staff should be assigned to offer consultations to patients, actively encouraging their participation in healthcare decision-making.

Healthcare providers should know how to encourage patient engagement, for example, by using instructional aids such as the Guide to Healthcare Decision-Making to help patients assess their needs. Hospitals can also leverage tools like electronic service centers, websites, and mobile apps to disseminate medical information.

Optimizing Mobile Technology

Mobile health apps represent a novel form of incentivizing patient engagement. Amid rising healthcare management costs, uncertainties surrounding healthcare reform, barriers to public and private doctor-patient communication, and the promotion of physician-led health initiatives, mobile app developers are facing mounting pressure. They are seeking effective solutions to enhance user satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. In this context, mobile health apps serve as a key strategic tool for alleviating or even resolving these challenges, making them particularly crucial for healthcare app developers.

How Can Mobile Health Apps Effectively Incentivize Patient Engagement? The Key Lies in Delivering High-Value, Personalized Information to Timely Meet User Needs.

App developers need to formulate a comprehensive mobile health strategy. Developers must also pay attention to how to set up relevant features to prevent poor user experience or the risk of personal information leakage provided by medical apps. Simply modifying or even copying the feature settings of other mobile service apps is not advisable, especially those with low downloads and significant defects. Merely moving from a website to a mobile platform does not effectively incentivize consumer engagement. To develop a comprehensive mobile health strategy, mobile app developers need to focus on: How to optimize mobile medical app products to encourage customer participation?

During the R&D phase of medical apps, IT departments typically focus on whether to purchase or develop specific features. However, "customer-centricity" is the most critical principle in mobile application development. Beyond business considerations, this mobile health strategy must incorporate the most fundamental and essential elements: privacy and security. Only by ensuring these two aspects can consumers confidently engage in self-health management and disease treatment.

1. Privacy Protection

To leverage mobile internet technologies to encourage patient engagement in healthcare, medical applications must store and protect users’ private information and health data with the highest level of confidentiality. “Privacy protection” of health information is a right that everyone should enjoy, and it significantly influences whether users feel confident in entering their personal health and medical data.

Due to the vast volume of medical data, “how to protect user privacy” poses significant challenges to mobile technologies in healthcare apps. Mobile health applications are required to collect and receive users’ complete health records in real time, dynamically, and continuously throughout their entire health journey. As the number of users continues to grow and data accumulates over time, the sheer volume and diverse structural types of this data are self-evident. Furthermore, with advancements in information technology, an increasing number of web or mobile applications are granted access to users’ confidential data, all of which add considerable complexity to the development of healthcare apps.

To address these new challenges, mobile application developers should adhere to a common privacy framework. For instance, the U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has proposed that online exchange of personal health information must comply with a “Privacy and Security Framework.” Privacy protection can be addressed through nine key areas:

Openness and transparency; standardization and minimization of purposes; collection limitations; use limitations; individual participation and control; data integrity and high quality; security safeguards; accountability and oversight; remedies.

2. Information Security

As various online transactions and interactions continue to shift from traditional computers to mobile devices, strengthening “mobile security” has become an urgent priority.

The three major mobile operating systems—iOS, Android, and Microsoft Windows Mobile—are enhancing their “local security” features. However, if users need to share “protected electronic health information” (EPHI) through their medical apps, relying solely on these local security measures is far from sufficient.

Therefore, application developers must take additional measures to ensure the security of user data. They must first address the following issues: user authentication, operational performance, EPHI data storage, decommissioning processes, and more. These additional precautions help ensure that applications comply with the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and other relevant government regulations. Enacted in 1996, this law regulates various aspects of the healthcare industry, including transaction standards, specifications for healthcare providers, guidelines for practitioners, medical information security, medical privacy, and health plan regulations.

The following solutions are available for enhancing information security:

① Strengthen Identity Verification

The first step in protecting users' ePHI is to verify their identities.

In daily life, mobile devices are frequently shared among family members and friends, while the loss or theft of smartphones and tablets is a common occurrence. Therefore, applications must implement secure and comprehensive login and authentication processes.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is a particularly effective solution. This verification process requires users to provide additional data, such as Personal Identification Numbers (PINs), virtual tokens, and biometric authentication, rather than relying solely on standard usernames and passwords. However, application developers must exercise caution and thoroughness in designing such features to ensure data security while avoiding overly complex login procedures, thereby enhancing user experience.

② Restrict User Permissions

Most mobile health applications grant users certain discretionary permissions, such as the ability to take screenshots, print records, and link or interact with social media platforms. Disabling these permissions can, to some extent, prevent the accidental leakage and dissemination of user data, such as the inadvertent posting of blood glucose or blood pressure readings on social media sites like Facebook.

③ Data Storage Capacity

Mobile devices and applications must also have sufficiently robust information storage capabilities. This information contains critical health data, which poses potential data security risks.

When transmitting user data, if a medical app stores data not on the local device but on a secure, remote server, with the device serving merely as a tool for accessing user data, the risks to data security are significantly reduced. If data is stored on the device, the application should incorporate a “remote wipe” feature to prevent data breaches in the event of mobile device loss or theft.

④ Other Specific Functions

Medical apps can also implement an “auto-logout” feature. When the application is closed or remains inactive for a specified period, the user’s session and interface are automatically terminated. This ensures that personal data remains secure even when the device is shared with others.

Although China’s development of mobile health lags behind that of Europe and the United States, relevant national ministries and commissions have issued a series of documents and policies addressing “privacy protection” and “information security.” The Technical Guidelines for the Construction of Telemedicine Information Systems (2014 Edition), released by the National Health and Family Planning Commission, outlines specific security measures. For instance, data collection should utilize unified channels to ensure the security of medical information resource data acquisition. In data storage, fragmented distributed discrete storage technologies should be employed to safeguard medical information resources. During data transmission, security should be ensured through the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and encryption techniques. Data deletion must guarantee complete erasure before disk storage space is released or reallocated to other users. Full data backups should be performed at least once daily, with backup media stored off-site.

Some scholars have stated, “Healthcare that involves patients and fosters positive, effective interactions with them is often the most valuable.” Currently, China’s healthcare system still requires improvement. It is essential to stimulate patient engagement, continuously disseminate knowledge about health and diseases, and leverage technological tools such as mobile apps to facilitate bidirectional information flow and feedback between physicians and patients. This approach integrates “patient engagement” organically with the delivery of healthcare services, thereby enhancing the efficiency and outcomes of medical care.

Text | Chen Kun

Editor: Huang Jia