Innovating healthcare in the era of patient engagement: Challenges, opportunities & new trends

Making patients active participants in their healthcare is recognized as a crucial component of high-quality healthcare services, particularly in the treatment of chronic diseases. The growing understanding of the key role of patient engagement in improving healthy behaviours and clinical outcomes has led healthcare to search for innovative ways to foster individuals’ roles in the care process: patient engagement may lead to more responsive services and better outcomes of care by incorporating the patient’s values and preferences into care plans. While, patient (dis)engagement may produce a waste of healthcare resources and poor clinical outcomes, comprehensive patient engagement across the continuum of care still presents a challenging task for hospitals and health systems, as it requires not only redesigning current care approaches, but also working with patients to identify ways to integrate care management into daily routines and activities; with this aim, new technologies may play a fundamental role. Based on these premises, this chapter sets the ground for the topics presented in this book and introduces the main challenges that healthcare systems currently face. Within this framework, this chapter also highlight the reasons why healthcare professionals and managers must regard patient engagement as the key to redesigning healthcare and making it more sustainable at the economic, sociological, and psychological levels.