Losing Sight of the Patient in Digital Tech

The following is a guest article by Jared Mauskopf, CEO at Medical Web Experts, and John Deutsch, CEO at Bridge

The advent of EHRs promised better patient engagement and optimized workflows, but has efficiency overtaken empathy and patient-centered care?

As emerging technologies like agentic AI are hailed as breakthroughs, providers and payers face a flood of tools promising to boost patient engagement and outcomes. Yet despite the surge, many hospitals and practices find that these tools often fail to deliver on promises.

A lack of person-centered, empathy-focused design and persistent technical challenges make these tools more disruptive than supportive. They may fail to positively impact outcomes, be mostly ignored, and decrease clinical staff burden while facing patient distrust (Duffy A et al. 2022; Woods L et al 2023; Luijk A et al. 2024). 

Patient engagement tools should support clinicians and inspire patients by demonstrating emotional intelligence. When designed with empathy, reflecting the compassion shown in bedside care, digital tools build stronger connections, encourage shared decision-making, and lead to higher patient activation.

Reclaiming Clinical Empathy in a Digital World

Empathy is the ability to understand and share another’s feelings and allows us to see the world from their perspective. Clinical empathy is the foundation of digital empathy. 

Too often, patients are treated as passive recipients of care, shuffled from appointment to portal without a true sense of agency. But when digital tools honor individual needs and fit seamlessly into care workflows, patients are empowered to move from passive recipients to active, engaged participants in their health journey.

Dr. Kavita Babu, winner of several awards on humanism in medicine and Chief Opioid Officer and Professor of Emergency Medicine at UMass Memorial, outlines four components of clinical empathy: 

• Listening
• Empathizing
• Explaining 
• Helping

More than recognizing emotion, it requires listening and acknowledging patient and caregiver experiences while empathizing by reflecting that understanding in meaningful ways. Clinicians inform care decisions and strengthen patient connections by using this information to explain what is happening. They then provide targeted help and guided care by explaining what’s happening and offering plans and resources shaped by those insights.

Through this lens, empathy becomes a powerful therapeutic tool, building authentic relationships that make patients feel seen, heard, and valued. 

Several studies have investigated the relationship between clinical empathy and clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction, finding a strong relationship between physician empathy and the likelihood of better outcomes like glycemic control in patients with diabetes (Hojat M et al., 2011; Canale SD et al., 2012; Mercer SW et al., 2016)

Digital solutions must be built around these four essential components.

Empathetic, Tailored Digital Patient Engagement

Person-centered engagement requires what many clinicians already do: listen, understand, and acknowledge how patients feel physically, mentally, and emotionally. 

When designed with clinical empathy, patient engagement tools enhance a provider’s human touch. They offer a personalized, two-way platform rooted in empathy, enabling the following key functions:

• Listen – Gathering information from disparate sources, including EHRs, wearable data, appointment transcripts, and patient inputs like symptom tracking, while integrating data and analyzing it to provide a patient-centered context for their experience
• Empathize and Explain – Summarize and contextualize the analyzed data to offer personalized insights and trend analysis to the physician and patients
• Help – Focus on, and be tailored to, the patient and clinical staff; patient engagement tools should furnish smart reminders, tailored nudges, and dynamic next steps through a mobile two-way interface

They require a secure, connected technology foundation and an intuitive, user-friendly interface to drive sustained patient use. This yields improved health results and a more personalized experience that fosters trust, loyalty, and patient engagement.

Digital Empathy: Transforming Patient Engagement into Patient Activation

Patient activation means having the knowledge, skills, and confidence to take charge of one’s health. Empathetic digital health solutions pave the way for transforming engaged patients into activated patients.

Like engagement, activation is linked to better health outcomes. Patients with higher activation scores are more likely to have biometrics such as body mass index, hemoglobin A1c, blood pressure, and cholesterol in the normal range (Hibbard J 2018, Lin MY et al. 2020; Herner I et al. 2023).

Empathy is a powerful therapeutic tool that deepens relationships, enhances satisfaction, and drives better health outcomes while facilitating the patient transition from engagement to activation.

To drive true activation, providers and technology vendors must weave the elements of empathy into the core of care. This involves personalizing interactions based on each patient’s unique needs and evolving circumstances. A proactive, human-centered approach keeps patients meaningfully connected to their care teams, both during illness and in wellness, turning episodic care into lasting relationships and patients into active participants in their health.

About Jared Mauskopf and John Deutsch

Jared Mauskopf, CEO at Medical Web Experts, a company specializing in developing digital healthcare apps and John Deutsch, CEO at Bridge, a configurable, tailored patient engagement platform drawn on decades of both their personal experiences and skills designing and implementing digital health platforms to share what makes patient engagement tools effective in the age of digital health and value-based care.