5 Ways to Treat Chronically ill Patients

Here are five surprising ways to tailor experiences so patients adopt healthier behaviors when faced with chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and COPD.

Everyone wins when healthcare organizations successfully motivate chronically ill customers to get-and stay-healthy.

Patients know it. The healthcare industry knows it. But that’s not enough.

“Human behavior is pretty complicated. If it was easy, everybody would be making healthy choices,” says Richard Safeer, MD, medical director of employee health and wellness at Johns Hopkins HealthCare LLC at The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. “Also, people have different needs, and you have to meet them where they are on their health journey.”

Here are five fresh and surprising ways to tailor experiences so patients adopt healthier behaviors when faced with chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).