Fulfilling meaningful use objectives for patient engagement is not as simple as checking off boxes, says one industry expert. It’s a mindset, a way of thinking about healthcare, that connects to patients where and how they want to be reached.

At the Tuesday morning session, titled “Making Patients Your Partners in Satisfying Meaningful Use Stage 2 Objectives: Case Studies in Patient Engagement,” at the 2013 HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition, Eric Manley, the eHealth System Manager for the Mayo Clinic, helped to shed light on patient engagement.

Though Manley says patient engagement has been a part of what Mayo has done for a long time, meaningful use, especially Stage 2, is a catalyst to kick it up a notch.

“The main objective is to engage patients at the right place, at the right time,” he said.

Mayo sees 1.1 million patients annually, according to Manley, and it receives 250 million unique visits per year to its website. When it comes to patient engagement to fulfill meaningful use requirements, “the patient portal is the way we’re providing access,” he says.

Secure messaging comes in a close second. But, it’s not just making these things available, Manley says. “It’s making the patient use them. Just having it out there isn’t enough.”

To be successful with patient engagement, it’s important to not just get the patient to do something, like register for the portal. It’s important to begin an actual relationship with the patient. “Using secure messaging has to be part of your practice,” Manley said. “It can’t be the second or third option.”

Most patients work 9-to-5 and they want to contact their physician and be contacted in return through secure messaging. “Pay attention to how your patients contact you,” Manley says. “That is their preferred way of contact.”

Of course, some patients don’t want to use a portal or secure messaging – but this is only because they often don’t understand it, Manley says. This is where clear explanations and persistent efforts to educate them pays off.

“Sometimes it might take 10 times, but on the 10th time, they realize it’s something they would be interested in,” he says.

Mayo recently conducted a patient survey to learn what the clinic was doing right, and how the clinic could do even better at patient engagement. The feedback from some 45,000 patients included appreciation for the peace of mind the patient portal offered, by allowing patients to review material in their home, to learn and digest it at their own pace. They also liked being in charge of their own healthcare, with the portal.

Patient engagement is “not just an IT solution,” Manley says. “It’s a care solution. IT is just the mechanism.”