What is Patient Engagement?
- Blake Rodocker
- September 04, 2017
What Is Patient Engagement? A Digital Empathy Approach to Modern Healthcare
Patient engagement is the knowledge, skills, ability, and willingness of patients to actively participate in their healthcare, shifting from passive recipients to active partners in shared decision-making. Effective patient engagement improves treatment adherence, reduces hospitalizations, and lowers costs under value-based care models.
This guide is for healthcare IT leaders, operations executives, and physician leaders evaluating patient engagement strategies for ACOs, MSOs, and provider groups.
Key Takeaways
| What You Need to Know | |
|---|---|
| 📋 Definition | Patient engagement = patients as active participants, not passive recipients |
| 🔥 Burnout crisis | 43% of physicians still experience burnout, 62% blame administrative tasks |
| 📈 Market growth | $26B+ in 2025, projected $85B+ by 2030 |
| ❌ Why tech fails | Most solutions lack empathy in design, they add friction instead of removing it |
| 💡 The answer | Digital Empathy = translating in-person compassion into digital experiences |
| 📊 New success metric | “Return on Experience & Efficiency” not just traditional ROI |
Defining Patient Engagement
Patient engagement refers to the knowledge, skills, ability, and willingness of patients to actively participate in their own healthcare. Rather than being passive recipients of care, engaged patients collaborate with their providers in shared decision-making, adhere to treatment plans, and take ownership of their health and well-being.
A systematic review of 48 studies found that engaged patients feel more confident, adhere more closely to medical plans, and even have reduced hospital admissions.¹¹
However, patient engagement only works when healthcare organizations use the right tools—and use them effectively. Technology that adds friction, creates confusion, or burdens staff will never drive the results healthcare leaders are seeking.
The bottom line: Patient engagement isn’t about portals and apps, it’s about activating patients to take ownership of their health.
Why Patient Engagement Matters Now More Than Ever
The Shift to Value-Based Care
The financial landscape of healthcare has fundamentally changed. Under value-based care and risk-based contracts, providers are financially accountable for patient outcomes—not just the volume of services delivered.¹²
With revenue from coding widely regarded as “maxed out,” the primary opportunity to manage costs lies in proactive patient engagement that prevents expensive hospitalizations, emergency room visits, and uncoordinated specialist care.
This requires a fundamental shift: from reactive, episodic encounters to an ongoing, proactive relationship with patients. Most legacy technology wasn’t built to support this.
Physician and Staff Burnout: The 2025 Reality
Healthcare workers are overwhelmed—and the numbers tell the story:
| Stat | Source |
|---|---|
| 43.2% of physicians reported burnout symptoms in 2024 | AMA¹ |
| 82% more likely to burn out than other workers | Stanford Medicine² |
| 62% cite bureaucratic tasks as #1 cause | Tebra³ |
| 54% report frequent feelings of burnout | Physicians Foundation¹³ |
Technology that sits outside the EHR, isn’t intuitive, or requires additional steps only compounds the problem.
Meanwhile, high turnover among front-office staff—who are often underpaid and overwhelmed by complicated workflows—directly harms the patient experience. When staff struggle, patients feel it.
The bottom line: Burnout isn’t just a staffing problem—it’s a technology problem. Bad tools make it worse.
A Fragmented Patient Experience
Patients today face constant friction that damages their relationship with providers:
- Duplicate data entry — filling out forms online, then again on paper
- Confusing communications — disparate texts from multiple unintegrated systems
- Difficult portal access — complicated registration and login processes
This fragmentation leads to complaints that physicians don’t have time to address, the direct result of technology that lacks human-centered design.
The bottom line: Fragmented technology creates fragmented experiences. Patients and staff both pay the price.
The Digital Empathy Difference
This is where most patient engagement technology falls short: it treats engagement as a feature set rather than a philosophy.
True patient engagement requires Digital Empathy—the practice of translating in-person compassion into the digital experience.
Digital Empathy is rooted in a simple belief: the best technology makes healthcare more human, not less.
Traditional vs. Digital Empathy Approach
| Traditional Patient Engagement | Digital Empathy Approach |
|---|---|
| Feature-focused | Human-focused |
| Adds clicks and logins | Reduces friction |
| Siloed point solutions | Unified platform |
| Reactive (visit-based only) | Proactive (ongoing relationship) |
| Staff works around technology | Technology works within existing workflow |
| Measures portal logins | Measures experience and efficiency |
Core Principles of Digital Empathy
Replicate the compassionate experience of in-person care. Patients should feel heard and cared for—whether in the exam room or at home.
Reduce friction before it becomes a complaint. Anticipate and eliminate frustrating processes proactively.
Give physicians more time to care. Every minute spent on admin tasks is a minute away from patients.
Support the whole person. Patients aren’t just diagnoses—acknowledge their concerns, preferences, and circumstances.
The bottom line: Digital Empathy isn’t a feature, it’s a design philosophy that puts humans first.
What Effective Patient Engagement Technology Looks Like
A Unified Digital Front Door
A fragmented digital experience is a broken one. True engagement comes from a single, seamless front door that is:
- Intuitive for patients
- Efficient for staff
- Invisible to physicians (no interference with clinical workflow)
This means consolidating intake, scheduling, payments, messaging, and records into one experience. When patients get clear communication from a single source, complaints drop and satisfaction rises.
Deep EHR Integration
Technology that doesn’t integrate seamlessly with the EHR creates more work, not less.
Clinicians shouldn’t need to log into ancillary systems. All data should flow directly into the EHR, eliminating extra steps that frustrate care teams and limit adoption.
With EHR adoption now at ~89%, integration isn’t optional—it’s essential. Yet many vendors offer only surface-level connections requiring manual workarounds.
The bottom line: If it doesn’t live inside the EHR, it won’t get used.
Workflow Automation That Serves People
Easing staff workflow and improving patient experience are inextricably linked.
When administrative tasks are automated—reminders, intake forms, payment processing—front-office staff are freed to provide compassionate, patient-focused interactions.
The goal isn’t automation for its own sake. It’s automation that serves people and strengthens relationships.
Proactive, Ongoing Engagement
Traditional engagement focuses on the visit: scheduling, check-in, follow-up.
But the most important moments happen between visits.
Effective technology fills these gaps—enabling ongoing communication that helps patients manage chronic conditions, adhere to treatment, and reach out before small issues become expensive emergencies.
The bottom line: Episodic engagement isn’t enough. The best technology maintains a continuous relationship.
Measuring Patient Engagement Success
Forget traditional ROI. Focus on “Return on Experience and Efficiency”:
| Metric | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Patient satisfaction scores (NPS, CAHPS) | Reflects real experience; affects VBC reimbursement |
| Staff hours saved | Reduced burnout, lower turnover |
| Vendor licensing costs | Consolidation can reduce overhead by up to 65% |
| Physician engagement | If it’s easy, they’ll use it |
| Prevented costly events | Proactive care = fewer ER visits and hospitalizations |
The bottom line: Measure what matters to the people using the technology, not just what’s easy to count.
The Patient Engagement Market in 2025
Patient engagement is now the fastest-growing segment in healthcare IT:
| Metric | 2025 Value | Projected Growth |
|---|---|---|
| Global market | $26-28 billion | $85B+ by 2030-2034⁴ ⁶ |
| U.S. market | $7.4 billion | 15-20% CAGR⁵ ⁷ |
| Patient portal market | $4.2 billion | 20%+ CAGR⁹ |
| Cloud-based deployments | 70%+ of market | Accelerating⁸ |
Basic portal functionality—viewing labs, sending messages—is no longer enough.
Advanced capabilities now expected:
- Mobile app with biometric login (fingerprint, Face ID)
- True self-scheduling with real-time availability
- Personalized care plans and education
- Digital intake that eliminates paper entirely
- Remote patient monitoring integration
Common Patient Engagement Challenges (And How to Solve Them)
Challenge: Low Portal Adoption
Real-world adoption rates average only 23-29%, which is far below the 70%+ seen in controlled studies.¹⁰
Digital Empathy solution: Frictionless access through self-registration, biometric login, and mobile-first design.
Challenge: Staff Resistance
When technology adds steps instead of removing them, staff won’t use it.
Digital Empathy solution: Deep EHR integration that keeps staff in their existing workflow—no ancillary systems to learn.
Challenge: Disconnected Point Solutions
Many organizations have accumulated “technology soup”: one vendor for intake, another for scheduling, another for payments.
Digital Empathy solution: A composable platform that lets you start small and grow, consolidating vendors while unifying the patient experience from day one.
Moving Forward: Patient Engagement That Actually Works
Patient engagement isn’t a feature to check off—it’s a philosophy that should guide every digital interaction.
The organizations succeeding aren’t just implementing technology. They’re choosing solutions designed with Digital Empathy at their core: unified platforms that reduce friction, integrate deeply with clinical workflows, and make healthcare more human.
The question isn’t whether to invest in patient engagement—it’s whether the tools you choose will truly serve the people who use them.
Last updated: December 2025
Sources
- American Medical Association (AMA). “U.S. Physician Burnout Hits Lowest Rate Since COVID-19.” May 2025. ama-assn.org
- Stanford Medicine. “U.S. physician burnout rates drop yet remain worryingly high.” April 2025. med.stanford.edu
- Tebra. “Physician burnout by specialty 2024.” February 2025. tebra.com
- Precedence Research. “Patient Engagement Solutions Market Size.” June 2025. precedenceresearch.com
- Precedence Research. “U.S. Patient Engagement Solutions Market.” November 2025. precedenceresearch.com
- Grand View Research. “Patient Engagement Solutions Market Size Report, 2030.” 2025. grandviewresearch.com
- Grand View Research. “U.S. Patient Engagement Solutions Market.” 2025. grandviewresearch.com
- Mordor Intelligence. “Patient Engagement Solution Market.” June 2025. mordorintelligence.com
- Market.us. “Patient Portal Market Growth Analysis.” September 2025. market.us
- Fraccaro P, et al. “Patient Portal Adoption Rates: A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis.” Studies in Health Technology and Informatics. 2017. PubMed
- Bombard Y, et al. “Engaging patients to improve quality of care: A systematic review.” Implementation Science, BMC. 2018. BMC
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). “CMS’ Value-Based Programs.” cms.gov
- The Physicians Foundation. “2025 Wellbeing Survey.” September 2025. physiciansfoundation.org
