The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked a wave of healthcare innovation that is still pervading the sector. For example, the rampant adoption of virtual care is having a big political impact – with Congress now weighing whether Medicare will continue to pay for telehealth services after the current public health declaration expires.
While telemedicine is one of the most visible limits to innovation in healthcare, the industry is facing another major shift that remains hidden from the public. Virtual care can offer patients more convenience and accessibility. The bigger challenge, however, is building a foundation for healthcare system innovation that allows providers to streamline their workflows and collaborate more effectively – which ultimately improves patient care.
The need for unified cooperation
Vendor-centric workflow tools are an overlooked area of innovation and adoption in many healthcare systems. In recent years, many hospitals have focused on centralizing technology platforms and consolidating their supplier relationships. At the same time, the trend towards taking over hospitals and doctors’ offices has put pressure to introduce scalable technologies that the systems can deploy immediately in new locations. The trend is towards fewer tools that can do more things – and serve as a central source of information for teams on site and distributed teams.
The pandemic has further highlighted the need for agile collaboration platforms that meet the urgent needs of healthcare employers – such as the need to quickly add team members to handle patient growth. At the height of the pandemic, many health systems struggled to cope with the influx of new team members and newly organized, multidisciplinary crisis response teams.
Many health systems simply lacked the infrastructure to efficiently cope with these requirements. Hospitals traditionally work with a fragmented mix of digital and analog workflow and communication tools, from email to paper calendars. While these tools serve a purpose, they have significant shortcomings when it comes to helping providers perform at their best. For example, different email and scheduling tools cannot sync with each other or adapt to rapidly changing information, such as: B. when a provider calls.
Most communication tools also require team members to contact specific named people, which can cause delays in sending or receiving critical information if the named person is not available or known. For example, the person required could be the Charge Nurse on the ICU Floor or the Cardiologist on Call, which may vary based on roles, shifts, and more – so the clinical collaboration platform should take this common role-based messaging scenario into account. Finally, most communication tools are not designed to meet the specific needs of healthcare providers, such as: B. Strict requirements for the protection of patient privacy, legal compliance and the rapid provision of business-critical information.
In many hospital systems, the focus of the changes has been on the implementation and adaptation of electronic health record (EHR) systems. In this maturity phase, EHRs and other solutions laid the foundation for documentation and revenue cycle management. Now healthcare systems are realizing the need to lay a technology foundation for an entirely different, more vendor-centric purpose: real-time communication and collaboration. Further innovation and adoption in this area will improve the quality of care, patient outcomes, and health care efficiency.
All of these factors point to the need for Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solutions that integrate multiple communication channels in a cloud-based system. UCaaS tools designed for the healthcare sector specifically support clinical teams and their needs for reliable, safe and intuitive collaboration.
Overcoming operational barriers to innovation
Enabling real-time information exchange and communication can be a challenge even for future-oriented companies. The first, critical step is to align leadership with defining what innovation looks like for their specific healthcare system. This step requires executives to develop a vision of what is possible – and at the same time to take precautions for what is feasible. Hospitals have to cut corners when introducing a new platform, as software cannot offer all conceivable features or functions for every user in the entire system. But when teams are willing to give a little to lay a foundation, they can get a lot in return while refining the solution over time.
Doctors, nurses, and IT managers, along with other members of the C-suite, should be involved in making decisions about the technology to be implemented. Involving both clinical and IT stakeholders is critical to understanding the needs of each cohort and ensuring smooth implementation and wide adoption across teams. The very concept of collaboration tools underlines the importance of the “care team” as a whole – it represents several roles and specialist areas that are involved in patient care. To do justice to this reality, a radically different approach than isolated decision-making is required.
In addition to a broad leadership consensus, the implementation of change requires a strong clinical champion at a high level in the organization. This champion must be committed to the success of the project, must be respected by colleagues and employees, and be able to invest time in the implementation.
In order to achieve system-wide acceptance for new technologies, executives have to deal with the established habits, knowledge and perhaps even the fears of their employees when learning a new system. The risk averse mindset of the healthcare sector can permeate corporate culture. Hence, the acceptance of innovation requires a top-down, inside-out approach while putting the needs of the clinician first.
Because innovation always involves a learning curve, healthcare systems must also proactively train their teams on best practices for using collaboration platforms. These platforms are best for actionable real-time communication – for example, when a nurse is consulting with a specialist about a patient’s status and next steps in the care plan. In contrast, more administrative tasks can be handled better in the EHR or via email.
Collaboration tools can act as a protective system for clinicians by reducing interruptions in their workflow. In contrast to pagers, which ping a large number of requests, a modern communication platform can trigger different tones or vibrations depending on the urgency of the request. Educating users about what is appropriate to ship on these platforms helps ensure that the technology serves them, not the other way around.
Finally, infrastructure constraints can be an obstacle to innovation. Before technical solutions are introduced, healthcare systems must carry out a clinical workflow and an IT discovery process. This process helps teams define current capacity and identify barriers to integration or adoption. For example, teams need to understand their bandwidth limits because VoIP calls require more bandwidth than text-based alerts. And the deployment of mobile apps in “bring your own device” environments is different than when using devices provided by the employer. Teams should evaluate their existing infrastructure to ensure it supports the foundation they are laying and address any blockers ahead of time.
looking ahead
Continuing the path of innovation in healthcare depends on physicians being able to do their jobs more easily and efficiently – which can improve metrics like provider engagement and satisfaction, patient outcomes, patient throughput, and length of stay. By optimizing collaboration, providers can provide medical expertise with the fewest possible obstacles. Health systems can also expand their collaboration tools to work more efficiently with community partners such as EMS and post-acute care institutions and improve continuity of care. Hospitals that are willing to embrace change and break operational barriers can transform the relationship of their care providers with their work – ultimately improving care and the patient experience.
Photo: Khanisorn Chaokla, Getty Images
source https://dailyhealthynews.ca/overcoming-barriers-to-healthcare-innovation-to-improve-provider-engagement-and-patient-outcomes/
No comments:
Post a Comment