To provide tailored care, you need to understand who your patients are. The best way to do this is by capturing demographic data.
This data is key because individual factors like ethnicity, age, or medical history can determine a patient’s susceptibility to certain illnesses, or dictate what treatments will be most effective.
In this blog, we'll explore three of the easiest ways to gather demographic data, so you can quickly access the information you need to deliver personalised care to your patients.
3 Easy Ways to Gather Demographic Data
1. Self-Check-in Systems
Patient self-check-in systems are a great way to capture demographic data as part of the check-in process.
When patients arrive for their appointments, you can prompt them to update their medical records by using pre-set customisable questions. This lets you gather demographic data like address, ethnicity, medical history, and more.
With self-check-in systems, you can maintain your records without staff asking patients for information directly, which makes maintaining confidentiality simple.
2. Patient Satisfaction Surveys
By collecting patient feedback through surveys, you'll get invaluable insight into your practice. You can identify what's working, what isn't, and quickly discover areas where you can make improvements.
Patient satisfaction surveys are also an easy way to gather important data about patient demographics. Typically, patients will have to input this data when they submit their feedback. This gives you the opportunity to ask important questions like:
- Are your accessibility needs being met?
- Do you feel involved in treatment decisions?
- What can we do to improve your experience?
By segmenting results by demographic, you can also gather feedback on specific issues that need addressing. This will allow you to deliver a more personalised healthcare experience, and help you focus on improving the quality of your care.
3. Online Patient Portals
An online patient portal provides patients with access to healthcare news, appointment bookings, prescription ordering, and more. They're efficient, easily accessible, and give patients greater control in managing their own care.
Your patient portal is also a useful tool for collecting key demographic data. Once a patient creates a secure login, you can request additional information as part of the registration process.
It's worth encouraging patients to fill out their profiles with as much detail as possible, as this will give you a wealth of data to refer to when suggesting treatments or offering advice.
Use Data to Your Advantage
To deliver a truly personalised patient experience, you need demographic data to help you understand your patients and their individual needs. With digital patient engagement tools, collecting this data is now easier than ever.
Learn more about how to take advantage of patient demographic data in our ebook.
