Using Print and Digital Tools
to Improve Engagement

Combining Print with Digital Tools
to Improve Patient Engagement

Reading time: 4 minutes

The Power of Print Patient Engagement Solutions

In a world where the scroll is king, people tend to skim when they read. It works well for social media feeds and quick news articles that deliver bite-sized content. It doesn’t work as well when it’s time to learn detailed information — like a treatment plan for a complex medical condition. 

The human brain uses different connections when reading digital information versus reading in print. Because of the fast-moving, skimmable nature of digital content, our brains tend to skip important information.

To encourage deep understanding, print rises to the top. One study found that reading in print led to 6-8 times better comprehension than reading in digital formats. Patient engagement research found that written discharge instructions reduced readmissions, helped patients
retain medical information, and remember medication instructions. 

Experts theorize that this happens for a number of reasons. Combining multiple sensory inputs, like turning pages and feeling the texture of paper, activates multiple parts of the brain. Turning pages helps patients create a mental map of what they read. This mental map associates information with a physical location that helps the brain retrieve it later, much like Sherlock Holmes’s mind palace. It’s not something that gets activated with the endless scroll. 

Barriers to a Fully Digital Patient Engagement Strategy

Most leaders report that their digital tools and mobile platforms are only partially effective. Despite all the potential to create an engaged population that fully understands their health and uses platforms to connect with their care teams, patients run into challenges. They can find user interfaces confusing, have difficulty logging in, or run into glitches that make it hard to use software. This is an even bigger challenge for patients who are not familiar with digital tools. 

Medicare-aged patients comprise around 19% of the U.S. population and use the healthcare system 2.5 times more than working-age
patients. Older patients are less likely to feel comfortable with digital engagement tools, and may not be able to access them. According to the Pew Research Center, only 61% of Americans over the age of 60 own a smartphone. 

In healthcare, we have become more dependent on sharing information digitally with patients, and internet connectivity and digital literacy are classified as social determinants of health. Barriers to digital resources affect lower-income patients, too — a quarter of people with incomes below $30,000 a year don’t own a smartphone. Purely digital patient engagement solutions leave these segments of the patient population behind.

Enhancing Your Digital Patient Engagement Strategy with Print

Even in digitally literate populations, healthcare leaders and clinicians struggle with getting patients to use digital patient engagement tools. Combining print with digital tools increases traffic to your digital platforms while keeping your patient engagement strategy inclusive.

Print can help patients:

  • Learn about digital platforms

  • Navigate the login process

  • Retain information — especially if used in teaching sessions

For patients who will not embrace digital engagement — whether due to
lack of digital literacy, or device or internet access — print can:

  • Give patients an easy way to access information

  • Help with symptom tracking

  • Help keep medications organized

  • Provide a place to write down notes and record appointment information

Digital patient engagement tools have many benefits — prompting 78% of leaders nationwide to invest in them. They can be convenient ways to automate, stay in touch, send reminders, and give patients a direct line to their care teams. 

Digital patient engagement solutions can also fall short in a few critical ways, and may not be the best way for your patients to learn.
Don’t throw away your books, a meta-analysis including a whopping 171,000 participants, confirmed that reading on paper was significantly better for learning than reading on a screen. Barriers to using or accessing digital tools can leave many vulnerable patients behind. 

The research shows that combining print with digital tools can help your organization improve patient engagement.

Conclusion

By combining digital and printed patient guides for healthcare providers nationwide, Patient Guide Solutions helps hospitals improve their patient experience. Our printed Patient Guides give easy access to digital content in our Patient Resource Library so your patients can have the benefits of print learning along with digital flexibility. In our Custom Guides, you can include attention-grabbing, accessible instructions to drive patients to your digital platforms. 

Request a sample of our Patient Guide here or reach out to your Hospital Success Advocate to learn more about enhancing your guides with our Patient Resource Library.

Giving your patients access to both digital and print offerings helps them stay engaged and healthy.