What do patients need to know when they are diagnosed?
A diagnosis can bring a swirl of emotion: shock, anger, disbelief, fear. The person may leave with instructions and a mountain of pamphlets, yet still feel lost.
What does this mean for me? What happens next? How do I tell my family?
More information is little help if someone is too overwhelmed to read it. They need somewhere to begin, a clear answer to the question on their mind, and direction they can take in—on their own time.
Patricia’s story begins with relief. After a year of unexplained symptoms, a diabetes diagnosis means someone finally believes her. Then comes the fear. Her first attempt at a daily walk ends at a neighbor’s wall, where she pretends to check her phone to hide her embarrassment. Later, she worries about how to talk with her adult daughter. The diagnosis does not change, but the situations do—and each raises a different need.
Early HealthConvos interactions suggest that information needs vary materially by disease. What patients want to know and the emotions surrounding the question are separate dimensions. The question determines the need that must be addressed; the emotional texture shapes how the response should engage with the person.
For health systems, supporting the whole person is a business priority. CMS programs tie payment and accountability to patient experience, care transitions, and outcomes beyond the encounter. Our health-system business case for patient education explains those incentives—and where answering patients’ questions can support the broader work of care.
The question is simple: how does the system help patients find understandable answers when they need them most?
This guide compares WebMD Ignite, Mytonomy, Get Well, CipherHealth, and HealthConvos by their roles in that experience. Use it to narrow your shortlist around the questions your patients need answered.
For a shorter market overview organized around the head term, start with our guide to patient education vendors.
About this comparison: HealthConvos publishes this guide and is one of the products discussed. Vendor descriptions draw on public product documentation reviewed September 14, 2026. Suggested fit and demonstration questions are our assessment, not independent ratings or results from hands-on testing. Product capabilities and packaging should be confirmed with each vendor.
Start with the patient problem
A health system can use more than one of these models. A small community hospital and a large system may have the same unmet need, with very different resources to address it.
| If the missing capability is… | Compare this model | Ask the vendor to demonstrate… |
|---|---|---|
| Consistent education across conditions | A clinically maintained content library | Finding, reviewing, and delivering content that is easily available and accessible in patient languages |
| The right education at the right moment | A prescribed care pathway | Sequencing education, reminders, and tasks around a defined episode |
| Follow-up that reaches the care team | Outreach, monitoring, and escalation | Capturing a response and routing the need to an accountable person |
| Answers to questions patients initiate | A patient-question experience | Receiving an unexpected question, selecting a response, and handling a gap |
Patient education platforms compared: strengths, limitations, and best fit
These are starting points for a shortlist. A single vendor may span several models, and the presence of AI, video, or a QR code alone does not establish how a product works.
| Vendor | Publicly described focus | Consider when… | Verify in the demonstration |
|---|---|---|---|
| WebMD Ignite / Krames / Healthwise | Clinical content, multimedia education, workflow delivery, and interactive assistants | You need broad educational coverage and delivery through existing clinical systems | The exact product, licensed content, language coverage, integrations, and how any assistant constructs its response |
| Mytonomy, part of Elsevier | Video education, content management, communications, and patient engagement | You need to deliver and manage education across care journeys | Content assignment, portal and standalone access, reminders, reporting, and the scope of the proposed package |
| Get Well | Digital care plans and engagement across care settings | You need education, reminders, assessments, and tasks coordinated over time | The patient journey, EHR dependencies, escalation ownership, and staff workload |
| CipherHealth | Outreach, rounding, patient access, and analytics | You need patient responses to drive care-team follow-up | Response capture, routing, documentation, integrations, and who acts on exceptions |
| HealthConvos | Patient-initiated questions routed to fixed, approved responses; aggregate intent learning | You need to answer questions outside the expected education pathway and identify missing content | The exact response library, anonymous access, data flow, unsupported-question handling, and content-gap reporting |
WebMD Ignite, Krames, and Healthwise
WebMD Ignite’s content portfolio includes print, digital, video, and interactive education. Its HealthInteractive offering includes AI-powered assistants. WebMD acquired Healthwise’s operating assets in 2024; its portfolio also encompasses Krames.
Ask for a proposal tied to specific products and licenses. Comparing “Krames” with another platform without identifying the delivery product can conceal important differences in functionality and cost.
Mytonomy
Mytonomy describes video education, content management, communications, and access through a portal, an EHR, or a standalone website reached by QR code. Elsevier completed its acquisition in May 2026.
Ask the team to demonstrate the patient’s path into the proposed deployment, how education is assigned, and which capabilities are included in your contract. An acquisition announcement does not establish that every product is already integrated.
Get Well
Get Well describes digital care plans combining education, reminders, assessments, and tasks, with clinical workflow and EHR connections.
For a procedure or recovery program, walk through the sequence from enrollment to follow-up. Identify which patient responses create work for staff and who owns that work.
CipherHealth
CipherHealth’s platform connects outreach, rounding, patient access, and analytics with clinical systems. Its conversational outreach offering lets patients respond in their own words and makes responses available for staff follow-up.
That is a different data purpose from anonymous educational exploration. Ask what is retained, what reaches the clinical record, and how the workflow closes a patient’s request.
HealthConvos
HealthConvos for health systems begins with a patient question. AI identifies the intent and selects from a finite library of reviewed responses.
Patients can enter without an account through a direct link or QR code. Patient questions are processed transiently rather than retained; only non-identifying intent contributes to aggregate reporting. The experience is anonymous by design.
HealthConvos supports the systems already in place. It adds a governed question layer without changing clinical records, patient-specific instructions, monitoring, triage, or staff workflows.
What changes when the patient starts with a question?
Marcus wants a rich life beyond diabetes. He works in marketing. When he was diagnosed, he told everyone. Soon every meeting brought someone’s diet advice. He stopped offering updates—not to hide, but to make meeting rooms about the work again.
Three years into his story, he has learned his own patterns around meals, blood sugar, and walking. Some decisions have become routine. “It gets quieter,” he says.
His reassurance comes from taking an active role in his own care. He encourages people to talk with their doctor about what is possible for them. His story offers perspective, not a promise that everyone’s experience will follow the same course.
Patients voice their own concerns and frequently choose to follow a character’s story arc. The stories are prepared from real patient experiences.
Consider a patient who has received diagnosis information but is worried about explaining it at home.
How do I explain this diagnosis to my family? I’m afraid I’ll upset them.
Illustrative example: This is not a verbatim patient message, a clinical recommendation, or a promise that this exact response appears in every deployment.
| Step | What happens | What the buyer should inspect |
|---|---|---|
| The patient asks | The person begins with their own concern | Whether the experience is easy to enter and use |
| Intent is identified | The information need is family communication; fear is the emotional texture | Whether intent and texture remain separate dimensions |
| An approved answer is selected | A reviewed response addresses the question, if a suitable response is available | The exact script, video, transcript, and captions before launch |
| The library has a gap | The experience uses its defined fallback; the unmet intent can inform aggregate reporting | The fallback, appropriate human route, and how new content is prioritized |
A diagnosis article and a response about dealing with family may concern the same condition but answer different questions. Emotional texture describes how the response should connect with the person; it does not replace the expressed information need.
See It in Action: request a functioning HealthConvos example. Enter your work email to receive the example. The interaction above illustrates the mechanism; the supplied example may use a different scenario.
Compare governance, privacy, and access
Inspect the response patients actually receive
Ask whether the system retrieves a fixed response or composes new wording at runtime. “Approved source content” does not establish that every generated answer has been approved. Review the complete output and fallback for unsupported questions. Our governed versus generative patient-facing AI guide explains the distinction.
The word “governed” can describe different architectures. Ask each vendor to show what reviewers can approve before launch and what can change during an interaction.
Follow the complete data path
Ask what is collected or transmitted through the entry URL, referrer, cookies, analytics, logs, question processing, and subprocessors. Understand data retention rules and whether an interaction can be linked to an individual. An account-free interface alone does not establish an absence of tracking.
HealthConvos captures aggregate patient intent without retaining individual patient identities. Patient questions are processed transiently, while non-identifying intent is retained for aggregate reporting. Privacy, security, and legal teams should review the specific implementation before rollout.
Test every required language from question to answer
Compare natural question input, intent interpretation, reviewed scripts, culturally appropriate adaptation, voice or video, transcripts, and captions. Test low-confidence and unsupported-language handling. A translated interface or subtitled video alone does not establish that the full conversation works in that language.
For a HealthConvos pilot, specify the conditions you want to address and review the responses and required language versions. Confirm availability for the selected library before making a rollout commitment.
Match access and integration to the job
Walk the actual patient path: portal login, app download, text link, direct link, or QR code. Then identify what must connect to the EHR and why. A bounded HealthConvos education pilot can be scoped around direct or QR access; patient-specific monitoring and documentation have different requirements.
During the pilot, have patients—including people with disabilities—try the service. Can they understand the answers? Does it work on their phones? Is it clear how to contact their care team when they need medical help? Are the answers relatable?
What does a pilot include?
Ask every shortlisted vendor to separate the first deployment from enterprise expansion. Compare total work and cost across the same scope:
- Content and rights: Which existing assets can be used? Who supplies the scripts, owns the rights, and approves updates?
- Formats and languages: Which responses, videos, transcripts, captions, and reviewed language versions are available now? What requires production?
- Technology: Which integrations, hosting arrangements, access controls, and security reviews are required?
- People: Who owns clinical review, content maintenance, implementation, training, and any response queue?
- Commercial terms: What is included in licensing, setup, content creation, translation, support, renewal, and expansion? What can you export when the agreement ends?
A HealthConvos pilot is designed to be simple. You issue a purchase order; we provide a base library of 60 approved video responses in English and one additional language. You pay for use during the pilot.
At the end, you see what patients engaged with, which questions were answered, and where the gaps remain. Then we work together to fill those gaps.
Use the patient education platform RFP guide to turn the shortlist into specific procurement requirements. Agencies can use the same framework when developing patient experiences for clients.
What can a pilot tell you?
Agree on measures before launch:
- how people reach the experience
- how long they dwell
- how many questions they ask
- which questions approved responses answer
- where content gaps appear
- how the team will fill those gaps after the pilot
Early HealthConvos production interactions suggest that information needs differ materially by disease. In the observed herpes interactions, disclosure and symptoms were prominent; explicit emotional intent was less evident. Emotional texture can still influence how those questions are expressed.
Classified topics currently cover roughly 65% of production visits in aggregate, with coverage varying by condition and improving as gaps are identified and closed. Use emerging patterns to explore content needs and refine the taxonomy.
The useful output is a better understanding of what your program should answer next. That is particularly relevant after the patient appointment or discharge, when new concerns surface.
Frequently asked questions
Which patient education platform is best for a health system?
The best fit depends on the missing capability: content coverage, timed education, care-team follow-up, or patient-initiated questions. Compare vendors against a defined use case, patient population, approval process, and implementation scope. A combination of tools may fit better than replacing an entire system.
Are Krames and Healthwise part of WebMD Ignite?
WebMD Ignite’s portfolio encompasses Krames and the operating assets acquired from Healthwise. Ask which current product, content license, and delivery capabilities are included in your proposal; the legacy brand name alone does not define the package.
Does HealthConvos replace a content library or patient portal?
HealthConvos supports existing efforts by giving patients a private place to initiate questions and receive previously approved responses. It does not change clinical records, patient-specific instructions, monitoring, triage, or staff workflows.
Can we use our existing patient education content?
Identify the content rights, suitable question-and-response pairs, required formats, and approval owners. For HealthConvos, the pilot proposal should specify which assets can be reused and which need adaptation or production. Existing content does not automatically constitute a complete approved response library.
How much does a patient education platform cost?
Compare quotes for the same population, content scope, languages, integrations, and support. Separate recurring licenses from setup, production, translation, maintenance, and expansion. Confirm the charging basis and renewal terms; this guide does not publish unverified vendor prices.
How should we evaluate AI in patient education?
Ask to inspect the exact patient-facing output, how it is selected or generated, how patient data is handled, and what happens outside the supported scope. HealthConvos uses AI to identify intent and route to fixed approved responses. Other systems may use different architectures that require different review processes.