7 ways to turn practice technology into real patient engagement

The patient portal is live. The text reminders are automated. The online scheduling page is up. And a sizable share of patients still are not logging in, booking online or writing back. Owning the technology and getting patients to use it have turned out to be two very different problems.

The national numbers show how wide that gap runs. More than three-quarters of people were offered online access to their medical records in 2024, but only about two-thirds actually used it, according to ONC. The single biggest lever was not a slicker app. Patients whose clinicians encouraged them to use the portal logged in at far higher rates than those left to find it on their own.

That is the real opportunity. Most engagement technology already sits in the average practice; the returns come from how deliberately the team puts it in front of patients, and from matching each tool to the moment where it actually helps. Here are seven places to start.