Engagement Suite Promotes Patient-Physician Communication

A new version of an integrated care engagement platform supports healthcare providers as they move from volume- to value-based care.

The latest version of the Agfa Healthcare (Mortsel, Belgium) Engage Suite for Integrated Care is designed to optimize coordination of patient care between care providers, patients, and caregivers beyond the hospital walls by orchestrating and streamlining the patient's journey along the complete care path, supporting true integrated care, and engaging patients in their own care. The open system collects clinical information from different sources, including healthcare providers in acute care, GPs and social care institutions.

Patient data can be uploaded from devices such as tablets, smartphones, etc., enhancing patient engagement and the capture of patient data. Results, reports, images, appointments, and all other information on the patient are easily accessible to the stakeholders who need it, including on mobile devices. A new feature is video conferencing, which enhances the interaction between physicians in multi-disciplinary team meetings and also supports better patient-physician interaction, including as part of a telemedicine program.

A multi-disciplinary team meeting feature offers a platform for stakeholders to inform each other and to discuss test results, diagnoses, patient feedback and treatment. With the Engage Suite, physicians and clinical users can use a single platform for interacting with one another, recording notes, and getting expert opinions, without traveling or compromising quality of care. Engage Suite features also include administration and organization of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs), which are increasingly recognized as an important tool for evaluating clinical care.

“Our Engage Suite, which allows patients and their health teams to communicate with each other conveniently and quickly, is already being used in hospitals around the world,” said Joost Felix, business unit manager of Integrated Care at Agfa HealthCare. “With the extended features of the Suite, we want to further improve patient engagement and care coordination, and at the same time respond to policy changes in healthcare organizations as they move from volume- to value-based care.”