March 19, 2024

Why Patient Relationship Management is More Than Patient Engagement

By Amber Hull, Marketing Manager

When couples decide to get married, they typically have an engagement period. It’s an exciting time for sure, with decisions on wedding details and honeymoon destinations, but ultimately, the engagement period is meant to be temporary. The more meaningful step is marriage and the years that follow – the lifelong relationship that develops.

Keeping that example in mind, we can apply the same logic to the patient/provider dynamic. Office visits and one-way text messages may keep the patient engaged temporarily, but to be successful and deliver the most impactful outcomes, providers must build an ongoing relationship with their patients.

That is why TeleVox is proud to lead the way in offering patient relationship management (PRM) solutions to the healthcare industry. We value long-term, personalized relationships through sustained, meaningful, and bi-directional communications.

Key Differences Between PRM and Traditional Patient Engagement

Unlike episodic patient engagement, PRM emphasizes continuous, data-driven interaction, enhancing patient experiences and outcomes while offering significant operational and financial benefits to physician offices and healthcare systems.

Let’s explore how PRM differs from traditional patient engagement:

Patient Relationship Management	Traditional Patient Engagement
Focuses on comprehensive, ongoing patient relationships	Focuses on episodic or transactional engagement, satisfying “in-the-moment” needs
Utilizes advanced analytics for tailored care and communication	Utilizes cookie-cutter, one-way messaging
Facilitates real-time communication at scale with Iris, our conversational AI-powered Virtual Assistant, via SMART SMS and SMART Web	One-way messaging means patients must still call the office to schedule or gain information, tying up valuable staff time on administrative tasks
Integrates and automates patient communications, enhancing efficiency	Manual process that further burdens staff
Features connected and continuous patient-oriented workflows that are accessible everywhere and any time	Clinical workflow-oriented often available only during business hours
Connects EHR, CRM, Web, Voice, Text, and More	Disparate channels that often don’t communicate with each other
Reaches both current and potential patients	Reaches current patients only