Highly engaged patients are undoubtedly tied to better outcomes. So are highly engaged providers. But tools healthcare organizations have used for the past several years have largely proven ineffective in solving many of the challenges that both face during complex care journeys.

Indeed, the U.S. healthcare industry witnessed an unprecedented boom in technological innovation over the past decade. Leaps in advanced diagnostics. Novel data collection methods. And even new approaches to predicting illness. 

But these historic technological shifts across the healthcare landscape have exaggerated — and even drastically changed — the dynamics of long-standing challenges. Password-protected portals and appointment reminders have failed to reach the bar for innovating patient and provider engagement. And newly digitized patient-provider communication functions — such as inbox messaging — have inadvertently contributed to record workforce burnout.

That’s why the industry is experiencing a new shift. One that represents a more comprehensive and sustainable approach to solving healthcare’s most pressing existential challenges. A transformation that encourages high-touch engagement between patients and their care teams — without adding more friction to care journeys. That shift is toward intelligent care enablement.

1. What is intelligent care enablement?

Intelligent care enablement refers to scalable technology that supports both patients and care teams through complex clinical episodes to more efficiently deliver personalized, proactive, and coordinated care.

Three core components of intelligent care enablement include:

1. Scalable technology - Leverages technology to intelligently automate tasks to empower clinicians to expand their patient capacities without overburdening them.

2. Patient and provider impact - Supports both patients and care teams by streamlining workflows and supporting high-quality, high-touch care.

3. Built for complex clinical episodes - Goes beyond administrative functions to support clinicians in guiding patients through complex care journeys.

Importantly, intelligent care enablement innovations proactively engage stakeholders across care at various touch points to help them with proactive assistance. Evolving past siloed programs, these technologies are interoperable, and address multiple workflow and user experience gaps.

2. Why do intelligent care enablement technologies exist?

After discharge, patients start a new phase of care. One that happens outside of the four walls of the hospital, away from the immediate vicinity of an individual's usual provider or trained healthcare professionals altogether. 

And even though the setting changes, the care journey continues in the form of managing symptoms or side effects, ongoing medication requirements, and other scenarios for which patients need guidance to navigate. The subsequent response in cases of uncertainty is to message or call clinicians for resolution, which can incur long wait times, gaps in communication, extra working hours for care teams, and a friction-filled experience for everyone. 

Intelligent care enablement can holistically address such gaps. First, by supporting patients with scalable technologies such as conversational AI-equipped assistance. And secondly, by delivering to providers a longitudinal view of the patient care journey that is interoperable with existing systems of record. By honing in on simplifying care for patients through AI innovation and streamlining clinical workflows for care teams through actively removing tasks from their to-do lists, intelligent care enablement supercharges high-touch, high-quality care.

3. Does intelligent care enablement use artificial intelligence (AI)?

Yes. Unlike solutions that have focused primarily on automating very specific tasks, intelligent care enablement technologies use AI to scale resources to reach more patients or engage with them more meaningfully — or, in some cases, both. 

Memora Health, the leading intelligent care enablement platform, uses conversational AI to engage patients with high-touch support after they leave the hospital, understanding concerning messages that require escalation to their care team, and identifying barriers to care plan adherence such as transportation or prescription issues. Importantly, the role of AI in this context is to augment clinical workflows and remote patient interactions to help reduce friction often caused by manual processes.

4. How does Memora Health’s intelligent care enablement platform work?

Memora Health’s platform assists patients with AI-backed SMS care support and empowers care teams by unburdening them from several routine aspects of care delivery.

Memora Health’s platform helps bridge gaps in care delivery across the care continuum — from patient to care manager to clinician. Memora’s technology goes far beyond text reminders, using clinically-validated care journey data to guide patients along complex care journeys while giving clinicians accessible information about those individuals to promote better outcomes across the board. 

Some of Memora’s specific intelligent care enablement features include independently answering symptom-related questions from patients, automatically escalating concerning interactions to providers for urgent resolution, equipping clinicians with the ability to tag appropriate care team members, and providing clinical staff with longitudinal views of patient care journeys.

Want to learn more about how AI is applied in healthcare? Read our whitepaper.

As the stakes for operating efficient and effective healthcare organizations become higher than ever before, embracing novel technologies that comprehensively address the industry’s long-standing challenges will be imperative. Intelligent care enablement equips leaders and teams with the right tools to execute with less friction and more impact. See what Memora Health’s platform looks like in action with our recent case study.

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