This content is sponsored by Unify
Most of these interactions don’t happen anymore.
“It takes too long — one thing that is obvious, the better the care teams can collaborate the better the outcomes,” says Tony Rich, Healthcare Specialist at Unify, a global telecommunications company.
Technology is a major reason for the demise of this lengthy, but effective, process. “We’ve had this disruption with the evolution of mobile connectivity, including smart phones and tablets. You have to bear in mind that not everything is locked to the desk [anymore],” Mr. Rich says.
Functioning in a mobile healthcare environment, hospitals must recognize providers’ differing preferences in device use. While one physician may prefer a text via a smart phone, another may opt to read notifications on a tablet.
“You’re giving [providers] a better experience because you’re giving them devices they want to use,” Mr. Rich explains. Communication-based technologies, specifically, have the power to boost staff performance and experience, which in turn, positively impacts patient experience and outcomes.
Communication is the cornerstone of care
Strong communication between staff members proves critical to patient care. When communication goes awry, it can present fatal consequences. A 2016 CRICO Strategies study found communication failures were associated with 1,744 patient deaths over five years, wracking up $1.7 billion in malpractice costs.
Effective lines of communication between providers and patients are vital to patient safety and experience. Every patient is assigned a care team that must cooperatively perform tasks to achieve the best outcome.
“If that care team can’t communicate effectively with themselves, the patient and others, then the result could be tragic,” says Mr. Rich.
The problem is providers are often stuck at their desks inputting information into EHRs, as opposed to communicating with staff members or having face-to-face discussions with patients. Physicians reported they spend 50 percent of their day on average entering data into EHRs and completing clerical work.
Mobile technology helps care teams avoid the limitations desktop tools place on their practice and interactions. Further, solutions that can travel with a clinician enable more accurate and comprehensive data entry. “If we can get those systems mobile, it will improve the information in those systems because it’s in real-time and fresh in their heads,” suggests Mr. Rich. Additionally, this immediate alert and response set-up will enhance communication among providers.
Unify deploys Unified Communications, which combines various communication platforms into one combined user experience. The platform leverages email, text and voice messaging integrated with live voice, audio and video conferencing into one interface. Unify’s technology sends alerts to physicians’ preferred devices, limiting the risk of missed notifications on platforms that providers don’t regularly check.
“The reason you want that intervention in the middle [of a care episode] is because [our solutions realize] that Doctor A has gone off shift, Doctor B is now on shift, so Doctor B should be alerted,” explains Mr. Rich.
After patient discharge, providers must still pull together to ensure proper care is delivered. Although the days of a care team meeting around a table are long gone, providers can leverage the same idea and turn the same interaction into a conference call or even extend it to a full video conference with nothing more than a click of a mouse or swipe of the finger.
3 common communication problems
Many hospitals run into obstacles when trying to implement secure and effective lines of communication. With healthcare cyberattacks up 63 percent year-over-year in 2016, organizations are scrambling to protect their devices and databases.
Equipped with about 20 years of experience in the healthcare arena, Mr. Rich highlights three of the most common communication problems he’s witnessed in the acute care setting:
- Undesirable devices. It’s unlikely all providers prefer the same method of communication. By allowing providers to choose their preferred device, hospitals will enhance communication. “We can overreach the intelligence we know in real time and deliver that message to [a physician’s] preferred device at that moment in time, not just to an inbox,” Mr. Rich notes.
- Email and app insecurity. Hospitals rely on email to function, with many leaders assuming people prefer this mode of communication. Email is the chosen medium across most organizations, for tasks such as scheduling and patient communication, but Mr. Rich warns it’s “only a matter of time before somebody sends [the email] to the wrong place.” Similarly, apps represent a “CIO’s nightmare,” as smart devices are unregulated. Both emails and apps present ample opportunity for a breach of data and patient confidence.
- Lack of time. Physicians no longer have time to sit around the table and review each patient case with their care team. Burdened by intense time pressure, physicians benefit from the creation of a virtual table, accessed via communication technology. Yet significant shifts in the communication process require cultural change.
Mr. Rich suggests selecting champions within an organization to overcome these communication challenges. If providers see their peers using the latest technology, they will be more likely to follow suit and use the solutions as well. Instead of imposing incentives to push certain technologies, Mr. Rich recommends leaving it up to the providers. If you yield the power of social influence, where physician champions elevate certain technologies, the transformation will begin organically.
Enhancing communication to de-stress the patient
Improving the patient experience starts with proactive communication and education. By communicating clearly with patients early in the process, providers are able to deliver an experience well within a patient’s expectations.
Based on a Unify survey of about 1,000 board-level hospital directors in 28 countries, hospitals are aware of the importance of the patient experience. Unify asked directors to share their top issues at the board level. All directors reported the same answers for the first and tenth priorities: control of budget and patient experience, respectively.
These two priorities rely on one another to succeed. If hospitals manage their costs, they will build a stronger brand. The better the brand, the more easily the hospital will attract better staff, explains Mr. Rich. Better staff yields enhanced patient experiences, outcomes, and in turn, increased revenue as the hospital develops a reputation.
To ensure positive patient experiences, start delivering exceptional care right when the patient walks through the door. A patient entering a hospital is likely to feel a high amount of anxiety. Any action toward de-stressing this experience will prove beneficial. This begins at the initial point of contact: when the patient checks in all the way to discharge. Mr. Rich wonders, “Why don’t we make them feel like a valued customer?”
Mr. Rich offers the analogy of checking into a hotel: when a person goes to a hotel, the front staff knows exactly who the person is and the room in which he or she will stay. The ease of the check-in sets the stage for a stress-free experience. In contrast, hospitals may struggle to pinpoint correct patient records, creating a confused experience for the patient. In the average EHR system, between 8 percent and 12 percent of records are duplicates, for example.
In a 2016 article published in Management in Healthcare, Mr. Rich explains how a technologically driven healthcare environment de-stresses patients, improves experiences and boosts outcomes. Communication-based technologies offer patients an avenue to receive information and take control of their healthcare journeys. As the industry sees heightened consumerism, organizations will also need to deliver on patients’ expectations of convenience and affordability.
“Patients increasingly resemble consumers and, as such, have higher expectations of service standards,” Mr. Rich wrote in the article. He outlined various ways hospitals can improve the patient experience and the caregivers’ efficiency via communication-based technology.
- Advanced telephony system decreases wait times and resolves issues at first contact
- Real-time patient status updates and communication via care-giver preferred mobile devices improves response times and helps ensure high-quality care at reduced costs
- A bedside device provides real-time access and updates to medical records and improves care planning, outcomes and reduces stress; it supports multidisciplinary teamwork and can shorten care pathways
- Tracking technology keeps a pulse on room status, patient status, wait times, staff status and equipment location to boost efficiency
- Feedback surveys in the bedside console addresses dissatisfaction immediately
- Alerts sent directly to patients’ personal devices remind patients about medication and follow-up appointments
“Digital technology is set to define the way humans will live in the future,” he concluded the paper. “It will help to make resources more available to patients of all ages and allow physicians to treat more patients than ever before.”
How one hospital strengthened communication to streamline clinical decisions
A hospital in England, Birmingham Children’s Hospital faced the difficult task of gathering a care team immediately to provide support to neighboring hospitals. Through its Kids Intensive Care and Decision Support service, the hospital provides urgent assistance to clinicians in other hospitals that care for critically ill babies and children.
As the KIDS service grew, it soon demanded a 24-hour operations center. The hospital sought technology that would help with quick decision making, bringing the right physicians and nurses together rapidly.
The hospital landed on Unify’s OpenScape Xpert in February 2014. The technology receives incoming calls via a 24/7 freephone number, and the KIDS service consultant then triages those calls. OpenScape Xpert coordinates the right physicians and nurses to address the 1,600 referrals the hospital receives annually.
Mr. Rich compared the process to that of the stock market, where a trader brokers all incoming calls. OpenScape Xpert has decreased the time of gathering all the right people for a case from 30 minutes to two minutes, he noted.
In a press release, KIDS Lead Nurse Phil Wilson said the technology allows for conference call flexibility, easy transfers between calls and permits the KIDS operator “to create and deconstruct conferences whilst still holding individual personnel on the console.” Ultimately, this smooth connectivity across multiple phone conversations ensures the appropriate providers are engaged in the right conversation at the right time.
“You’re pushing the [clinical] decision firmly back to the provider at the right time,” explains Mr. Rich.
Conclusion
As technology continues to shape healthcare delivery, successful hospitals will leverage its power to improve efficiency and — most importantly — patient safety and outcomes.
“We’re moving from the technology transformation of making things more efficient and now actually straying into the edges of clinical benefits,” Mr. Rich concludes.
The communication focus is two-fold: connecting the care team with each other and connecting patients with their providers. If used smartly, communication-based technologies will increase staff performance and yield positive patient outcomes. This cultural shift will strengthen the organization’s brand, attracting more top-line staffers.
More articles on health IT:
Microsoft to attend Becker’s 3rd Annual HIT and Revenue Cycle Conference
5 most popular health IT stories in August 2017
CVS Caremark exposes patients’ HIV statuses via envelop windows
