The healthcare industry frequently discusses how to use technology to improve patient engagement, but it's just one step in a complex process that, done right, contributes to the much more formative process of patient empowerment.
HIPAA understandably makes it hard for organizations to obtain personal health information and even harder to use that information for the purpose of data analysis. Empowering patients to own and share their own data -- and then assuring them that it's being properly de-identified -- can ease this process.
Improving efficiency and cutting costs in healthcare means better collaborating with patients. Web portals and mobile applications can help, but only if they connect with the myriad systems that doctors actually use. Organizations can't forget that a little empathy goes a long way, too.