Last Updated | November 11, 2021
Overview: Importance of Communication Between Healthcare Professionals
For hospitals and healthcare institutions, ensuring the best patient care involves way more than making accurate diagnosis and administering the correct treatments. Effective and concise communication between healthcare professionals is an important step of the health care process, be it doctors discussing procedures, treatments, and all pertinent information regarding patients’ histories, a healthcare facility accurately sharing patient information with another organizations, or a group of doctors putting their heads together on the best way to treat a new patient. Not to mention, patients also need a way to convey their concerns to healthcare workers, while doctors may need to convey adequate information to patients to help them take preventative measures.
A patient may interact with numerous physicians and nursing staff within the same facility, and there are many instances when critical information needs to be communicated accurately. Lack of team collaboration and effective communication can increase the risk of patient injury, malpractice, and even potential death. Lack of communication can lead to loss of critical information, misinterpretation of information, and medical errors.
Even personnel within the same hospital need to communicate for effective information sharing. Be it coordinating room changes, planning surgeries, administering tests and treatments, or even scheduling appointments; doctors, medical staff, and patients need to be communicating effectively to prevent unnecessary duplications, lack of procedural coordination, medical errors, and unnecessary dangers to patients. For instance, if the condition of a patient in a medical ward appears to be deteriorating, the bedside nurse should be able to communicate vital information about the patient’s known diagnoses, symptoms, vital signs, and acuity to the responding clinician who will need this information to devise a plan.
Similarly, a patient may interact with several medical facilities within their lifetime, which makes knowledge sharing among multiple facilities all the more important. When physicians fail to access the previous patient files, it may result in test duplications and second opinions that would not otherwise be necessary, as well as drug interaction and adverse reactions between the medications a patient may already be taking. In short, physicians may not see the “big picture” of the patient’s condition and immediate priorities for care.
Improve communication with custom medical software in hospitals
Doctors, nurses and all other medical personnel involved in patient care are constantly requesting and sharing patient information during different phases of care. This is why hospitals need to ensure that each professional in the care chain has total access to updated patient information, so that they can focus on patient care rather than endlessly looking up treatment files, lab results, patient histories, and other information. This is where Electronic Health Records/Electronic Medical Records come into play by creating healthcare app development services.
An EHR is a digitized record of patients, containing vital information about each patient, such as medical history, diagnoses, treatment plans, list of medications, allergies and health conditions, radiology images, lab results, immunization dates, and past illnesses. EHRs have become a vital part of the healthcare industry since they render the pertinent patient data readily available to the authorized people, whenever it is needed. In addition to facilitating communication between healthcare providers within the same medical facility and providing correct and updated information about patients in one place, EHRs can be used to share information across different healthcare organizations. The main benefit of an EHR is that physicians get ready access to a patient’s health records, so that instant care can be administered.
Throughout their lifetime, a patient may visit a number of healthcare facilities and see multiple providers from cardiologists, ophthalmologists to family doctors and oncologists. Not to mention, frequent visits to the ER and other scheduled tests further add data to a patient’s medical record. EHRs store all this fragmented patient data under one roof and makes sure that each new healthcare provider in the patient’s chain of care sees a complete picture of a patient’s overall health. EHRs make sure that a physician who is seeing a patient for the first time has total access to a patient’s previous history, alleviating a new patient from having to retell his whole treatment story.
Effective Communication with Custom Medical Software
Folio3 custom EHR/EMR software also includes the option of E-prescription, whereby doctors write digital medical prescriptions, which can be directly forwarded to pharmacies. The greatest benefit of E-prescriptions is that they eliminate the understanding barrier between healthcare staff and pharmacies, which often stems from illegible handwritings and patient comprehension. E-prescriptions enhance efficiency and improve accuracy, reducing the margin for human error. Since all prescriptions are directly forwarded to the pharmacies, doctors can rest easy knowing that each patient receives the correct dosage. With Folio3 EHR/EMR integration, doctors will also have access to a patient’s insurance records, helping them prescribe the right medicines that are to the best of a patient’s financial capabilities. Similarly, EHR data can help physicians administer the right drug to a patient with life-threatening allergies, or even warn physicians when they are about to administer a drug that has potential interactions and/or adverse reactions with other medication a patient may be on.
Medical software Benefits of effective communication in healthcare
First and foremost, ensuring patient safety is the utmost priority of every healthcare team. Effective communication between medical professionals ensure that a patient is being treated in line with their medical history, medications are being given correctly, allergens are avoided, and good quality care is provided.
Effective communication between healthcare providers with the help of custom medical software results in better team relationships and professional bonding, less turnover due to ease of access of information, greater job satisfaction, and more peace of mind owing to data organization. All of these factors enhance productivity and improve patient care in the long run.
Another benefit of using custom medical software is that it helps professionals store medical records of patients in an organized manner, so that every piece of information is readily available in an efficient manner. There are many stakeholders involved in the healthcare process of a patient. The copious amount of data makes it very difficult to keep patient records regularly updated and organized. Even the tiniest details about a patient are critical when it comes to decision-making. Hence, effective communication between healthcare teams is necessary to manage and organize patient records.
Avoid poor communication in healthcare with medical software and apps
Poor communication in healthcare due to non-reliance on custom medical software and apps increases the frequency of casualties that could otherwise be prevented. Miscommunication among nurses, doctors, and specialists about specific patient conditions can even lead to demise. For instance, a doctor might not about know about a patient’s allergies before administering a drug, or at the end of their shift, a nurse might forget to tell the next doctor about a patient’s medical condition. Prescribing the wrong medicine to a patient can have severe repercussions.
Less than efficient communication between healthcare staff may cause fragmentation of patient data that should otherwise be stored under a single umbrella. During a patient’s stay in a medical facility, they may come into contact with different medical professionals who may perform an evaluation as per their shifts. Each professional may notice new developments and may not be able to communicate them to each physician in the patient’s chain of care. This practice leads to a lot of scattered information which can effect patient care. Not to mention, since the information of already performed tests and procedures may not be shared, lack of communication can lead to repetitive tasks and test duplication.
Ultimately, all forms of miscommunication between healthcare professionals lead to poor patient care. Healthcare institutes will fail to provide quality patient care in the absence of a tech-driven communication system within the healthcare facility. Folio3 Custom medical software Development Company provides specialized medical software that facilitate communication between healthcare professionals as well as their patients.
Can HL7 Integration Help With Communication In Healthcare?
HL7 has become an essential part of healthcare, but not everyone knows the nitty-gritty of the system. HL7 is necessary for connecting multiple healthcare systems and other compliant apps. If you don’t know, HL7 is the standard protocol for sharing healthcare information between different apps related to healthcare communication.
HL7 also allows healthcare providers to secure and clean the information flow at healthcare facilities with the help of management systems. For now, HL7 integration can help with document control, finances, patient care planning, laboratory automation, scheduling, staff administration, and logistics. Moreover, the HL7 interface can help prevent low-level message production and parsing with the available tools.
On top of everything, HL7 integration will reduce the chances of errors and simplify the information-sharing processes in healthcare. With the help of HL7 integration, the data transfer standards will be clear. Not to forget, HL7 integration can help with medical transcription without compromising on accuracy, quality, or security. To summarize, HL7 integration APIs can streamline the communication and data sharing in healthcare.
Healthcare Apps: Examples Of Effective Communication in Healthcare
There are plenty of mobile apps that facilitate clinical communication between healthcare providers, as well as aid the healthcare facility manage and access important healthcare data without compromising the security of data. For instance, CareAware Connect is an amazing app that that helps healthcare providers manage clinical communications on a single device and ease workflows. The app provides a way to improve care coordination by enabling multiple healthcare teams to collaborate and communicate. Everyone, from professionals to auxiliary staff can view patient data, including vitals, medicines, treatment plans, scheduled and completed tests and care services. CareAware can be used in conjunction with a variety of tools, such as bar codes to manage medication administration.
Another app, DSS Inc., offers a host of EHR-based mobile features that facilitate communication, improve patient care, enhance coordination between healthcare staff, and streamlines workflows. DSS offers a host of clinical and administrative tools that enable healthcare staff to automate a suite of operations, from billing to financial reporting to home health mobile care management.
Similarly, the Marbella app offers healthcare providers, nurses, and other caregivers within a patient’s care of chain in hospitals, clinics, and waiting rooms, a way to streamline patient rounding. Healthcare providers can use this app to collect and update patient data recorded during and outside of general roundings, including safety and quality audits.
Last but not the least, The Spok mobile app is a messaging app that provides physicians, nurses, and other staff members a place to connect readily and accurately for emergency events handling and improved clinical communication. Since the app offers integration with EHR systems, it helps to automate and orchestrate patient care processes. The app protects sensitive patient details with encrypted, traceable messaging among doctors and other staff members and updates providers with “delivered/read” messaging from several different devices.
FAQs
Effective communication between healthcare professionals and patients?
Healthcare software play a huge role in enhancing physician-patient communication. Most integrated EHR/PMS systems include a patient portal where patients can gain access to their complete health information at any time without having to visit a healthcare facility or a doctor’s office. Patients can view their recent visits, medications, and also get automated appointments and screening reminders.
Not to mention, patients can also view their lab test results and schedule appointments to reduce waiting times. Many healthcare facilities are also offering telemedicine services that allow patients to schedule remote appointments. With the help of cutting-edge communication tools, patients and health care providers are able to discuss health concerns via video chat. Not to mention, patient portals offer extensive information and educates patients about health issues, as well as allow self-management through symptom tracking, resulting in better prevention. Effective communication builds trust between the patient and the provider and make it easier for the patient to buy into the importance of following the care plan.
What are the telemedicine startup costs?
The telemedicine startup costs range from $1500 and $2000 and can go as far as $100,000 for the full-fledged business. The cost involves hardware as well as software components as the high speed internet, computer system, and other paraphernalia are essential for video communication with the patient and large storage space for medical data storage.
which healthcare device design helps ensure effective communication between healthcare professionals?
When it comes down to the healthcare device designs, there are different options that can optimize communication. Some of them include EMRs, practice management software, clinical decision support, patient portals, and remote patient monitoring.
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