How Biometrics Can Help Your Patients During COVID-19 and Beyond

By Lisa Mulcahy via Multibriefs
September 22, 2020

As a healthcare administrator or physician, you know that your patients are dealing with heightened anxiety during COVID-19. Concerns about face-to-face treatment, financial worries, and a strong need for convenience and ease in interactions are just a few of the issues your patients are wrestling with.

One powerful way you can help pacify their fears and make their treatments easier than ever is by implementing biometric technology within your organization, facilities and clinician practices.

How can you accomplish this? Use the basic principles of biometrics marketing. According to Hitsearch, biometrics marketing is defined as the science of tracking a person's biometric attributes, using it to improve their customer experience.

This is done using physical data from that person — such as analyzing eye movement to determine what someone is looking at during a given time frame. Of course, it's crucial to obtain your patients' consent before you begin the process of integrating biometrics into their care experience — you always want to proceed in a way that's faultless, both ethically and legally. Biometrics are often used for security purposes and can also be tailored to offer the precise needs and conveniences that make your patients much more comfortable with their care.

Speaking of security, that's an additional benefit that biometrics can provide your patients: you can use the technology to protect patient medical records and payment information and use it to secure your patient portals and sensitive website info. Customer Think finds that security and convenience are the two key factors you need to focus on, and the specific features that biometrics address offer easy, instantaneous ways to accomplish this.

What are these features, specifically?

KYC (Know Your Customer) technology.

According to Thales, a KYC check is a cornerstone of biometrics — it's the mandatory process of verifying the identity of your patients. Simple facial recognition applications your customers can choose to use on their phones are a convenient example of this, and one they'll find easy to utilize as part of their check-in process prior to telehealth appointments or accessing their online records.

Eye tracking.

This technology measures what information a patient is searching for visually or is reading of your digital content. If your patients consent to you using this, you can delve into the concerns they're reading up on via your health conditions website content. Then, you can address a patient's questions more quickly, easily and comprehensively.

Skin sensitivity analysis.

A quick in-person check in the ER can help staff address a patient's emotional needs on the spot — and calm the fears of a patient about to have a COVID-19 test, for example. This technology can be useful in any care situation where stress is a significant factor.

Facial expression analysis.

This is a remote tool that can help doctors during telemedicine visits "read" a patient's understanding of his/her treatment options and recommendations. Again, with patient consent, this can be a great communication facilitator.

Technological transparency.

Biometrics offers you and your patients flexibility regarding how much information they want to provide to their clinicians. If a patient feels the technology is too invasive at any point, their experience can be scaled back quickly so it's tailored to their personal comfort level and needs.

Do biometrics sound like a great fit for your organization? Use this information as a jumping-off point, both of in terms of operations and cost-efficiency. You might just revolutionize the care you offer — and ease your patients' minds now and beyond the scope of the pandemic.

Lisa Mulcahy is an internationally established health writer whose credits include the Los Angeles Times, Redbook, Glamour, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Health, Good Housekeeping, Parade, Woman's Day, Family Circle and Seventeen. She is the author of eight best-selling books, including "The Essentials of Theater," an Amazon No. 1 new release.