“Great communication begins with connection” – Oprah Winfrey.
Communication in the workplace is the key driver of all operations. Especially in the clinical industry, communication between doctors, caregivers, and other staff strongly impacts the quality of care delivered to the patients.
For this reason, it is important to consider implementing clinical communication platforms that facilitate seamless connectivity and automation, which will help clinical staff stay on top of things.
Let’s explore what clinical communication platforms are, their benefits, and the leading five platforms you can implement at your clinic to become future-ready.
Clinical communication is a structured process that facilitates the exchange of information between healthcare providers, patients, doctors, and caregivers. It includes sharing medical details, discussing diagnoses, treatments, and prognoses, and building rapport in the ecosystem.
Clinical communication aims to establish and deliver efficient systems for patient care. It includes all forms of communication necessary to deliver the best possible care to patients.
A well-oiled system for clinical communication helps facilitate:
Communication is the foundation to improve the quality and efficacy of care delivered at a clinic.
Trivia: According to Project’s report, 31% of people say they use email to communicate in the workplace, followed by 30% who say they use an online chat platform (like Slack). So there is good demand for a dedicated communications solution in organizations.
Clinical communication and collaboration platforms (CC&C) are applications that run on desktops or mobile devices that facilitate secure messaging and integration of clinical systems to enhance clinical communication workflows.
Ever since the notification of HIPAA, a compliant way of clinical messaging was required, which gave rise to the adoption of CC&C platforms. This platform basically extracts or pulls data from the electronic medical records stored on the database to allow clinicians quick access to relevant patient information right on their mobile devices.
CC&C platforms also facilitate information about on-call clinicians, their availability, response times, etc., to plan better care for patients.
Did you know that the market for clinical communication platforms is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 17.5% to reach a value of $9.35 billion by 2031?
A clinical communication platform performs several important tasks:
These are just the major roles that clinical communication platforms play. Depending on the software you get, there may be more features on CC&C platforms.
Technology and innovation have made it possible to incorporate countless features in clinical communication platforms. All these features enhance internal workflows and communication, ultimately enhancing the level and quality of care that patients receive:
A Joint Commission study, although done in 2018, showed that 80% of serious medical errors were a result of miscommunication.
Clinical communication platforms have the capability to overhaul the way medical professionals interact at work completely. They help reduce reliance on outdated technology like pagers, fax, etc. and allow the integration of more widely accessible tech for communication (like mobile phones).
They provide secure messaging channels where medical practitioners can freely discuss cases without the risk of regulatory breach. It enhances the quality of care delivered to patients.
For complex healthcare cases where patients require a multidisciplinary approach, seamless communication and collaboration are key to delivering impactful care. Clinical communication platforms facilitate real-time group communication, file exchange, information sharing, and instant messaging capabilities to make interdisciplinary collaboration possible.
Clinical communication platforms unify all communications on a single interface, helping healthcare providers stay on the same page for all connected cases.
It allows a patient to receive holistic care without having to run from one department to the next.
Patient data protection and privacy are a major concern today when healthcare has become digital and remote consultation is popular.
Clinical communication platforms are HIPAA compliant and ensure that all exchanges that occur over these platforms are secure and protected. They provide robust data governance measures to control who has access to patient information and have built-in safety measures to prevent data breaches in the event a device is stolen.
Clinical communication platforms offer data encryption, access control, and secure messaging.
Technologies implemented in healthcare have but one aim: to help patients become healthy again and lead long and happy lives. Clinical communication platforms help enhance the connectivity between healthcare teams and collaboration capabilities, which reduces caregiving delays. They also help reduce medical errors that could lead to more complications in a case.
These communication platforms facilitate timely intervention to enhance patient outcomes and treatment safety. They enable patient monitoring and timely intimation through secured group messaging. All of this works to enhance patient outcomes.
Clinics are sometimes required to manage patient emergencies. In such situations, every second counts. Using clinical communication platforms helps alert all the concerned healthcare providers of the emergency and get them at the scene at the earliest.
These platforms especially help with homecare setups where dedicated nurses attend to patients at their home. The nurses can quickly leverage the secured messaging and alert systems to notify the clinic about emergencies and reduce the response time of care delivery.
The IT setups are already quite complex in a healthcare environment. Clinical communication platforms are designed to take up little real estate on the IT landscape and integrate easily with existing systems. They help connect various platforms together (like EMR and messaging) without being too heavy on the existing IT setups.
Let’s take a look at five future-ready clinical communication tools you can employ today to enhance workplace communication for your healthcare services:
G2 Rating: 4.2/5
This software is a cloud-based, integrated patient healthcare solution that offers much more than simple clinical communication features. You can use it to manage your clinic, staff, and practice as well.
G2 Rating: 3.5/5
PerfectServe is a dedicated clinical communication platform that accelerates the speed of care. It can optimize your clinical collaboration and improve patient and family communication.
G2 Rating: 3.7/5
Now rebranded as Optum, Change Healthcare is a one-stop destination for all things healthcare. You can use this platform for consulting services, data and analytics, financial solutions, and much more.
G2 Rating: 4.8/5
Relatient is a combination of scheduling and communication tools that enhances access to healthcare. It can improve patient engagement and establish a seamless continuum of care.
G2 Rating: 4.2/5
theEMPLOYEEapp is a mobile-based internal communication platform that simplifies connectivity. You can use it to inform, engage, and connect with your employees.
In one KLAS study, it was discovered that 100% of the respondents agreed that clinical communication platforms enhanced their overall efficiency. Additionally, 94% agreed that these platforms improved clinician collaboration.
The impact that clinical communication platforms have on healthcare is clear and positive. The future trends in the industry focus on several factors, such as:
Trivia: According to a Haiilo report, 71.8% of respondents agree that internal communication is a critical strategy for change management in an organization.
In the field of healthcare, effective and immediate communication can make a big difference to the quality of care delivered to those in need. Clinical communication platforms help create a positive, healing impact on your patients, and empower your healthcare teams to function at their best.
These tools remove data siloes, establish connectivity across clinical departments, bring all patient information on a single interface, and facilitate prompt exchange of information. It all works in tandem to enhance the care you are able to deliver to the patients.
To explore more benefits and features of using workplace or clinical communication platforms, visit the EMPLOYEE app website today.
Look for features like secure messaging, inter-departmental collaboration features, support for telehealth, and access governance features.
You can consider setting strong password policies, ensuring that the app is HIPAA and SOC2-compliant, using modernized encryptions, and conducting regular audits.
You can expect an initial purchase cost, an implementation cost that would go towards technical support for configuring the app, and a long-term maintenance and upgrade cost.
You can measure improvement in collaboration, communication, workplace efficiency, patient outcomes, and care response times to evaluate an app.
Use these three tactics to start improving HR communication at your company today.
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