how diabetes can be effectively managed in most patients thorugh online text messaging

Deliver better healthcare through effective use of secure mobile messaging

A US study reports people can improve their diabetes management following secure online messaging with their healthcare team.

A cohort of people with type 2 diabetes who had enrolled in an online portal of an outpatient healthcare organisation from 2011-14 were evaluated. This communication was an accompaniment to routine visits to healthcare providers.

Scientists from the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute in California wanted to see if messaging increased quality measures among the cohort. Around 72 per cent of the cohort used the messaging service, and those who frequently visited their health provider were more likely to message.

Those who used the messaging service were more likely to meet their HbA1c targets. This association grew in accordance with frequency of messaging, and regardless of whether the messages were initiated by doctors or patients. This relationship was strongest amongst those not treated with insulin.

In comparison, those who didn't use the messaging service were less likely to meet their HbA1c target.

The researchers also discovered that increased messaging frequency was also positively associated, but less significantly, with process measures such as eye examination.

"Internet-based secure messaging between patients and providers through a patient portal is now common in the practice of modern medicine".

"Patients with diabetes frequently used secure messaging for medical advice in addition to routine visits to care providers. Messaging was positively associated with better diabetes management in a large community outpatient practice."

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how hl7 messaging can help patient access to health care providers

Secure Messaging in Healthcare Market: Segmentation

Secure Messaging in Healthcare market would provide various applications to the healthcare industry, and by various types of secure messaging, we can segment the market into the following:

• Medical Compliance
• Direct Secure Messaging
• Secure File Transfer
• Secure Forms Processing
• Secure Patient Information
• Others

Secure Messaging in Healthcare Market can also be segmented by end users which are as follows:

• Hospitals
• Clinics
• Nursing Homes
• Long Term Care
• ASC’s and Trauma Centers
• Rehabilitation Centers

Secure Messaging in Healthcare Market: Dynamics

Secure Messaging in Healthcare market is primarily driven by a few key factors such as sharing healthcare data in a reliable format, easy to use, and less time-consuming. In addition to this Secure Messaging in Healthcare market also observes significant growth due to its compliance with the HIPAA guidelines ensuring that the communication would be safe. Secure Messaging in Healthcare market gains a significant drive from applications such as cost-effectiveness, improving the overall operational efficiency of healthcare organization, and comprehensive clinical decisions. Secure Messaging in Healthcare market will also strengthen the healthcare market by providing robust functionality and interface capabilities.

Secure Messaging in Healthcare market, however, require guidelines and regulatory framework to determine the extent to which these services would be used by providers. Secure Messaging in Healthcare could be misused if proper policies, procedures, and training are not initiated. Secure Messaging in Healthcare market is also associated the cost for deployment and lack of skilled workforce which restraints the Secure Messaging in Healthcare market growth over the period.

Secure Messaging in Healthcare Market: Region-wise Outlook

Based on geography, the Secure Messaging in Healthcare market can be segmented into five major regions: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa. At present, North America holds a leading position in the Secure Messaging in Healthcare market followed by Europe. The major driving factors which have driven the growth of the Secure Messaging in Healthcare market in this region is support from the government, and increase in the number of operational setups by various companies. Following North America, European countries are also anticipated to show steady growth in the Secure Messaging in Healthcare market. Currently, Asia-Pacific is in a nascent stage for Secure Messaging in Healthcare market as in the coming years would be developing at a very rapid pace showing the emergence of regional and international players.

Secure Messaging in Healthcare Market: Key Players

Secure Messaging in Healthcare is relatively new technology which is anticipated to play a huge role in the healthcare industry. Some of the major players operating in Secure Messaging in Healthcare Market are TigerText, Imprivata, Inc., Voalte, Spok Inc., Doc Halo, Vocera Communications, Cerner Corporation, Intelligent Business Communication – AGNITY, AMTELCO, Avaya Inc., PatientSafe Solutions, Inc., CellTrust® Corporation, Extension Healthcare and many others. Secure Messaging in Healthcare Market has the presence of many local players which have a huge market share in developed countries.

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how secure texting and secure messaging impact provider-to-patient communication

A recent study found that increased training for both patients and providers can help healthcare secure messaging be a more beneficial tool. 

With patient portals helping fuel healthcare secure messaging, additional training for both patients and providers can help alleviate “rules of engagement” concerns, according to a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR).

Researchers found that patients worried more about imposing on their physician’s time, lacking provider compensation for responding to secure messages, and not knowing when to use secure messaging for provider communication.

Providers voiced concerns on a lack of clarity for when was appropriate to communicate with patients via MyChart.

“Unlike the other features of a patient portal, such as viewing lab and test results or requesting appointments, secure messaging allows for the exchange of direct communication between patients and providers,” the research team wrote. “As a result, studies suggest that a patient’s relationship with a provider is a key predictor of the patient’s intention to use secure messaging.”

Researchers interviewed 13 primary care providers and 29 of their chronic disease patients who are familiar with the Epic MyChart.

Both patients and providers stated that secure messaging was beneficial for communication.

Deliver better healthcare through effective use of secure mobile messaging

“Most commonly, both groups felt that the ability for each party to respond according to their own schedule increased the efficiency of communicating,” the team explained. “Several patients specifically mentioned the benefit of conversations that could occur asynchronously, according to the patient’s and provider’s individual schedules, without reliance on telephone calls to the office.”

However, some patients were concerned that they would take up too much of their provider’s time by using secure messaging instead of going into the physician office. Additionally, it is not always clear when is the appropriate time for patients to utilize the secure messaging function, the study found.

Providers had three main concerns with healthcare secure messaging:

• Unfocused or insufficient information in the messages
• Inappropriate message topics
• Incorrect use of the secure messaging feature

Overall, the “rules of engagement” must be clarified, the researchers concluded.

Patients need to be taught how to use MyChart appropriately, such as knowing how to communicate via the portal and “understand when to use secure messages versus when to call or schedule an appointment.”

Printed materials could also be presented to patients when they first start using a patient portal. Individuals can learn how to create an account and then properly navigate through the portal’s features, including the secure messaging feature.

Providers will also benefit from a more in-depth training on secure messaging and patient portals, the researchers noted.

“Additional training that exposes providers to the patient view of the portal may provide a more complete understanding of the patient experience and help them to better interact with their patients,” the research team stated. “In addition, guidance could be provided on how to communicate in secure messages or alongside lab and test results.”

It will also be beneficial for providers to establish clear and consistent guidelines on patient portal expectations. Even patients who are experienced with patient portal usage may have difficulty understanding when secure messaging is appropriate and what time of information to put in a secure message.

“While there are a range of technical solutions that could be implemented to improve patient and provider communication via secure messaging, it is important to elicit input from all stakeholders in designing these modifications,” researchers concluded.

“The patients in our study, who were experienced users, had clear thoughts on what they liked about the secure messaging and identified specific areas in which they were uncertain about how to use this tool,” the team continued. “Discussions with patients can help to further refine their concerns and develop new ways to address them.”

Both providers and patients need to have a strong understanding of secure messaging for the technology’s benefits to be fully realized.

A study published in JMIR earlier this year found that provider secure messaging levels can predict their patients’ communicative behavior.

Patients who had providers that were highly responsive to other patients’ messages initiated 334 percent more secure messages than patients with providers who did not personally respond to other patients’ messages.

“Secure messaging could facilitate the development of deeper relationships by increasing interaction time, making patients more comfortable about asking questions and discussing embarrassing issues, and allowing physicians to provide better advice and education,” researchers explained. “However, such benefits are likely to be realized only if patients and providers are both committed users of the technology.”

That study also showed that patients with high initiation-messaging providers were 60 percent more likely to send a secure message than patients with non-initiation-messaging providers.

Increased provider-initiated and provider-response messaging were associated with statistically-significant increases in the adjusted probability of patient-initiated secure messaging among US Army soldiers, the research team concluded.

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how secure text messaging in healthcare provide effective communication workflows

Deliver better healthcare through effective use of secure mobile messaging

Secure Messaging in Healthcare can be defined as the use of technology to share patient data securely, integrates workflow operations efficiency, increase coordinate care and is in compliance with the HIPAA requirements. The widespread use of technology such as mobile phones, tablets, and notebooks in the healthcare setting given end users and opportunity to improvise communication regarding patient data. Secure Messaging in Healthcare would induce patient-centric care and help providers to provide value-based care. Secure Messaging in Healthcare can assist in provide to provider communication and also in provider and patient communications.

Secure Messaging in Healthcare market is primarily driven by a few key factors such as sharing healthcare data in a reliable format, easy to use, and less time-consuming. In addition to this Secure Messaging in Healthcare market also observes significant growth due to its compliance with the HIPAA guidelines ensuring that the communication would be safe. Secure Messaging in Healthcare market gains a significant drive from applications such as cost-effectiveness, improving the overall operational efficiency of healthcare organization, and comprehensive clinical decisions. Secure Messaging in Healthcare market will also strengthen the healthcare market by providing robust functionality and interface capabilities.

Secure Messaging in Healthcare market, however, require guidelines and regulatory framework to determine the extent to which these services would be used by providers. Secure Messaging in Healthcare could be misused if proper policies, procedures, and training are not initiated. Secure Messaging in Healthcare market is also associated the cost for deployment and lack of skilled workforce which restraints the Secure Messaging in Healthcare market growth over the period.

Secure Messaging in Healthcare Market: Region-wise Outlook

Based on geography, the Secure Messaging in Healthcare market can be segmented into five major regions: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa. At present, North America holds a leading position in the Secure Messaging in Healthcare market followed by Europe. The major driving factors which have driven the growth of the Secure Messaging in Healthcare market in this region is support from the government, and increase in the number of operational setups by various companies. Following North America, European countries are also anticipated to show steady growth in the Secure Messaging in Healthcare market. Currently, Asia-Pacific is in a nascent stage for Secure Messaging in Healthcare market as in the coming years would be developing at a very rapid pace showing the emergence of regional and international players.

Secure Messaging in Healthcare Market: Key Players

Secure Messaging in Healthcare is relatively new technology which is anticipated to play a huge role in the healthcare industry. Some of the major players operating in Secure Messaging in Healthcare Market are TigerText, Imprivata, Inc., Voalte, Spok Inc., Doc Halo, Vocera Communications, Cerner Corporation, Intelligent Business Communication – AGNITY, AMTELCO, Avaya Inc., PatientSafe Solutions, Inc., CellTrust® Corporation, Extension Healthcare and many others. Secure Messaging in Healthcare Market has the presence of many local players which have a huge market share in developed countries.

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why healthcare organizations need to have secure communications on PHI safeguards

Deliver better healthcare through effective use of secure mobile messaging

In summer 2017, cybersecurity certainly had the world's attention. No less than the presidents of the United States and Russia discussed the issue in person.

In our own world of healthcare, data security may not carry as much political weight, but if you ask patients, it's probably more important. Secure messaging for healthcare offers a good example of why: No one wants to imagine an email from a physician containing sensitive health treatments getting intercepted by a rogue who somehow jumped the barbed wire fence of data security measures.

Secure communications solve an important business challenge of helping clinicians and patients save time with routine interactions, such as providing lab results. Methods for this communication can range from emails via a patient portal to more sophisticated collaboration techniques.

But, as with many devices and software in healthcare, threats to protected health information always cast a shadow on how well hospitals safeguard communications between physicians, nurses and patients.

An article in sister publication, SearchUnifiedCommunications, about the core security elements behind a business messaging app or suite. Two areas struck me as particularly important for hospitals and other medical organizations:

• Encryption remains hugely important for secure messaging for healthcare organizations. "For an enterprise messaging application, end-to-end encryption is a desired outcome, especially when relying on cloud services and third-party servers to manage and route messages," the story noted.
• Also, because patient information is regulated by HIPAA, healthcare organizations must verify that whatever communications app they use reflects the privacy and security law's requirements.

This new handbook builds on these security tips with additional best practices for protecting healthcare communications and associated patient data.

Blockchain has potential in this area. The cryptography-based technology creates a tamper-proof series of transactions -- such as exchanging health data -- that guards against breaches. Whether hackers can break into a blockchain code remains to be seen, but the option is worth investigating to better ensure secure messaging for healthcare.

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how digitization is transforming care in patient engagement programs

Deliver better healthcare through effective use of secure mobile messaging

American healthcare is one of the last industry holdouts when it comes to fully embracing digitization. McKinsey Global Institute has ranked healthcare 19th out of 22 sectors in its oft-cited Industry Digitization Index.

Even as health systems implement digital health tools and practices, many of these technologies remain separate, leading to a disconnected patient experience.

But there is hope for the digitization of healthcare. Many digital health tools are designed to automatically link information from different digital sources, creating efficiencies that result in a better experience for patients and better workflows for staff.

Consider the typical digital hospital-patient relationship: One hospital department asks a patient to log into a portal to check lab results. Another uses an app for appointment reminders, and yet another sends digital health information to help manage patients’ care.

This disparate sea of digital tools can be overwhelming and burdensome for both patients and providers, causing confusion and poor use of the resources the hospital provides.

Here are some ways you can improve care coordination by taking advantage of digitization without a lot of extra work on your part.

Connect your digital systems

Different digital health tools have different purposes, and hospitals need multiple tools to accomplish their goals of improving health outcomes. But from the patient’s perspective, it’s all one connected topic: their health.

Through links, application programming interfaces (APIs) and other simple solutions, you can connect your digital tools to make it easy for patients to navigate between these resources to create a seamless patient experience.

Add a “push strategy” to your patient engagement

Many health IT systems deal with protected health information (PHI) that must be locked behind passwords—information such as treatment plans, lab results and appointment history. Those systems use a “pull strategy,” one that depends on patients choosing to visit a website and logging in.

A push strategy, on the other hand, proactively sends information directly to patients. These messages contain population-based information and do not discuss an individual’s specific health details. With push strategies, the information is put right in front of patients—on mobile devices, for example. There is no need to remember website URLs or passwords, and this increases access and use.

You can take your digitization to the next level by combining push and pull strategies. In other words, use your push messages to educate and engage patients, while also prompting them to visit the sites that contain their password-protected personal health information.

Use the data available to you

Being digital, these tools inherently collect data that may provide insights into how your patients are doing, who is more at risk and who needs additional attention. This data may come from survey responses, secure messages, patient-reported feedback and other statistics and information.

The data enables significant improvements in care quality and customer service that, in turn, can improve patient satisfaction, drive meaningful patient relationships and discourage patients from searching online for potentially inaccurate health information.

Use your data to gain a better understanding of your patient population and to make your patient navigators’ work more efficient.

Act on that data by providing further resources to patients who need it, thereby encouraging them to become better partners in their care. Patient activation is proven to impact outcomes and cost of care.

Digitization is where healthcare is heading, even if at a slower pace than other industries. Going digital creates efficiencies for your team and your patients, and it ensures that you’re providing the right care resources in the most efficient way.

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how common is texting within the healthcare space

Deliver better healthcare through effective use of secure mobile messaging

There’s no doubt that the reach of technology is widespread in the U.S. today. But how about in the healthcare system? As alluring as it is to discuss health tech startups, artificial intelligence and telemedicine, it’s crucial to move back to the basics.

In the hospital setting, providers rely heavily on devices for patient care-related communication. But what types of devices are they using? And just how up-to-date are they?

A recent survey, titled “Hospital-based clinicians’ use of technology for patient care-related communication” and published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine, took a closer look.

Researchers utilized a Society of Medicine database to conduct the survey of hospital-based clinicians across the country.

Out of 620 respondents, 495 received pagers from their respective hospitals. Approximately 304 of the 620 individuals said they most commonly received patient care-related communication via pager.

Additionally, about 300 out of 597 respondents said they utilize standard text messaging at least once per day. Surprisingly, 21.5 percent of those 597 individuals claimed they got text messages that included individually identifiable information. Another 41.3 percent said they received messages that included some identifiable information, such as patient initials.

Though clinicians claimed they frequently use text messaging, only one-fourth (146 of 549 respondents) said their organization implemented a secure messaging application that some providers were using. Even fewer (40 of 549 respondents) reported their organization had implemented an application that most clinicians were using.

As the researchers note, pagers are clearly the top choice for communication among clinicians. And while texting is becoming more commonplace, few hospitals have actually installed secure mobile messaging applications.

“The wide range of technologies used suggests an evolution of methods to support communication among healthcare professionals,” the study concludes.

The findings highlighted in the Journal of Hospital Medicine survey further validate the results of a March 2017 survey administered by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives.

Although the survey was conducted among CIOs rather than clinicians, it’s clear that methods of communication are not going unnoticed.

Of the more than 100 CIOs, 39 percent said their hospital only has secure texting for personal devices. Thirty-five percent said their organization utilizes secure texting on hospital-issued devices only. And 26 percent claimed their hospital has secure texting on personal and hospital-issued devices.

Moving forward, healthcare organizations should seek to standardize the devices that clinicians use to communicate. What’s more, these communication devices and methods should be secure, lest patient information is compromised.

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how chatbots are working successfully in healthcare; mostly in doctor-patient

For patients and caregivers, the ability to chat with clinical professionals through messaging applications is already a breakthrough in convenience, efficiency, and continuity of care. But as with any major technological shift, challenges arise when it comes to the finer details. For instance, how can health care professionals avoid being inundated with minor questions and requests, when the barrier between patient and doctor becomes nearly nonexistent?

This post will highlight how some of these challenges are being met with artificial intelligence and chatbots, and share a practical example of how “blending” of human and machine will allow this breakthrough to truly take hold in the healthcare market.

The seed of opportunity to bring messaging into the clinical setting is starting bear fruit: a number of companies in the space have successfully brought products to market. Examples include ConversaHealth (digital checkups via messaging) and Sherpaa (concierge medicine via messaging).

Mobile Healthcare Solutions

In these secure messaging apps the patient or caregiver is able to carry a conversation with healthcare professionals involved in their care. This confers a number of advantages over tradition forms of communication. First, messaging app conversations can contain links, images, PDFs and other files. This facilitates the immediate exchange of a wealth of information not possible with voice communication alone. Messaging conversations are also frequently asynchronous – meaning they do not have to occur in live-time. For instance, the patient can ask a question of the nurse on his care team via message in the middle of the night, and the nurse can respond the following morning. This all but eliminates “phone tag”. Lastly, a messaging conversation can include – or exclude – members of the care team at will. It’s no more difficult to transmit information to every care team member at once than it is to contact just one person.

With messaging, communicating with and among a care team becomes as easy as conversing in a Slack channel.

The opportunity for clinical messaging goes beyond human-to-human interaction, however. Consider a simple request from a caregiver, such as “please send me info on hypertension.” Why should a registered nurse take the time to search for a web page, copy the URL and send the link when it’s easy for a machine to discern the intent of the request, and resolve it? Finding these types of efficiencies is possible with what I refer to as “human augmented automatons” — chatbots with human guidance.

In his 2008 book The Innovator’s Prescription, Clayton Christensen posits that by capturing “institutional knowledge” and decentralizing it towards the patient one can achieve efficiencies, lower costs and improve care. For an example of how this might work in a world of clinical messaging with automation, think of a quick screener — an assessment. It’s a series of interconnected questions given to the patient that collects data from which decisions can be made. Often such screenings are periodic and data must be looked at longitudinally.

Carrying out an assessment is time-consuming work for the nurse or clinician. Yet it turns out that in most cases a machine is better at administering such surveys – consistent, accurate, never forgetful – compared with a healthcare professional.

Clearly, healthcare organizations have no tolerance for the kind of erroneous or inappropriate responses many chatbots have become famous for. The nature of a conversation about health is contextual, collaborative, and carries zero tolerance for absurdity. It’s simply not a place for “AI only” responses. So there needs to be a way to blend automated and human responses with high integrity.

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how digital health technologies help long-term health issues

Deliver better healthcare through effective use of secure mobile messaging

Digital technologies have had a game-changing impact on most aspects of our day-to-day lives. But one area that hasn’t yet felt the full benefit of digital is healthcare, in particular preventative health. The main reason being that technology can only get you so far, it then takes a more ‘human effort’ to encourage people to ultimately change their behaviour. To use the old adage: you can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

As we’ve developed as a society, our perspective on healthcare is that it is something we should all be freely provided with. This is the problem with healthcare as it is today: with treatment so readily available and accessible, people have gained a sense of entitlement to care from professionals, rather than taking responsibility for their own health and preventing issues before they require treatment, ultimately placing unnecessary pressure on health services.

This is clearly unsustainable. It is therefore becoming our responsibility as individuals to be more accountable for our own health in order to truly facilitate a sustainable future for healthcare. The obvious place to start is finding preventative approaches to health - in other words, the ‘health’ side of ‘health(care)’.

Helpfully, today we have a new generation of digital health technologies that not only offer consumer friendly features, but more importantly, have been designed with a deep understanding of the human condition, to make it easy for people to adopt healthy behaviours - empowering anybody with a smartphone to manage their own health, without the need to visit a healthcare professional.

There are now a huge number of health monitoring apps and platforms available to individuals, enabling them to improve their health through analysis of data from their daily activities and lifestyle habits. Historically, we have relied on healthcare with the approach of treating issues but, with access to insights on our health now available, this approach is outdated. For many, simply knowing you need to sleep more or consume less alcohol isn’t enough to make a positive change but, as health tech is adopted, it seems having a platform which directly informs you of issues, with evidence gathered from monitoring of your everyday activity, is.

Many long-term health issues stem from everyday lifestyle behaviours which can be prevented should individuals be aware of the causes and immediate action they can take. As technology advances and more individuals adopt a preventative and self-managed approach to their health, we will be able to significantly reduce the prevalence of preventative diseases such as type 2 diabetes and alleviate pressure on health services worldwide.

By implementing technology which encourages self health management, healthcare providers can help prevent diseases by supplying suitable products to vulnerable individuals and providing tailored care plans based on personal data.

At present, the health tech space is nurturing a growing number of individuals to adopt the use of wearables and using niche health apps targeted to monitor one specific area of their lifestyle. However, evidence shows many people discontinue use of devices such as smartwatches or fitness trackers because they don’t find them useful or are unable to draw conclusions from the data they gather. The next step in health tech is not just gathering data, it’s making sense of it and providing recommendations from self improvement.

There are now platforms available which bring together all health and lifestyle data tracked from the multiple devices people use and combine results to provide recommendations for prevention or pre-treatment of issues. This is the future of healthcare and where we will begin to see real change, but the key behind this is to engage people with their own health and empowering them to take control and become self-accountable, rather than rely on health care systems, something we have been guilty of for far too long.

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patient follow up and mobile devices

How can physicians begin to leverage the 247 million Americans who using healthcare mobile applications?

A new study finds that the increase in people using their mobile devices to monitor their health can also help them adhere to a physician’s advice.

According to a study by Mobile Future and Infield Health, the wireless pill bottle, a device that digitally monitors the amount of pills in a bottle and can send Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) -compliant, text or phone reminders to patients to take their medicine, increases adherence to 95%.

Also, medical text message reminders can increase medication adherence by 10%, double smoking cessation, and save diabetes patients more than $800 a year.

Deliver better healthcare through effective use of secure mobile messaging

“Consumer demand for wireless digital health tools is dramatically improving medical outcomes and reducing health costs,” says Mobile Future member Infield Health CEO Doug Naegele.

The study finds that by 2018, the mobile health industry’s ability to connect with patients has the potential to save the United States $36 billion in healthcare costs. There is already an increasing number of seniors using smartphones (77%) and 42% of hospitals are already using digital health technology to treat patients.

According to the study, 247 million Americans hae downloaded a health app. The student estimates that remote patient monitoring using mobile devices will save the United States $36 billion in healthcare costs by 2018.

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top 3 secure ways to enable doctor patient communication via messaging

Deliver better healthcare through effective use of secure mobile messaging

Since 2008, the data gathered from Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) has enabled hospital facilities to have a standard set of measures for reporting the overall level of patient satisfaction. The importance of tracking and understanding patient satisfaction should not be minimized as it is highly correlated with desired outcomes such as:

• Happier patients
• Lower mortality
• Decreased readmission
• Improved patient outcomes

A key way to improve patient satisfaction is by providing doctors and nurses with the ability to focus on communications with their patients. Indeed, poor communications between doctors, nurses and hospital officials is a significant inefficiency which eats up at precious time and decreases the subsequent quality of care.

By contrast, having better communication between the doctors enables them to have more time to provide their patients with quality information.

Impacts of poor communication

Poor communication among clinicians is pervasive and unfortunately results in serious and preventable patient harm incidents. Often, the problem of communications begins with a challenge to even figure out who is the right physician to contact. In many organizations, nurses are challenged to identify which physician to contact and the preferred means with which to do so.” Is the number wrong? Is it the right person?

The problem of poor communication is clarified when noting that many clinicians use pagers as their primary mode of communications. Pagers are unfortunately a widely used platform riddled with numerous problems. These problems include issues such as contacting the right clinician but extend to the pager’s limited ability to receive information. These issues can contribute to medical error and often result in increased frustration among clinicians.

The impacts of poor communication among doctors and nurses inevitably impacts the level and quality of communication that physicians provide their patients. Lacking access to timely and immediate communications with their colleagues, physicians and nurses can only respond by providing their patients with incomplete information.

Mind shift

The goal of improved communications needs to be improving patient outcomes and lowering readmission rates. To this end, secure and encrypted smartphone based communication platforms are effective tools. Fortunately, most CIOs believe that their hospitals need to bring on a mobile strategy as part of an effort to improve clinical and operational outcomes.

In fact patients whose providers used mobile secure text messaging left the hospital about 0.77 days sooner, equivalent to about a 14 percent reduction in their overall hospital stay. Mobile secure text messaging can improve communication among providers leading to more efficient care coordination and allowing patients to leave the hospital sooner.

Conclusion

Healthcare’s focus on patients’ level of satisfaction inevitably requires physicians, nurses and healthcare colleagues to improve the quality of their communications. By investing in a HIPAA compliant, secure messaging platform that enables digital interoperability, hospitals and clinics can see decreased patient readmission and improved healthcare outcomes. Hospitals need to continue to monitor these outcomes to ensure healthcare communications

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how healthcare apps are revolutionizing patient outcomes

Increased patient involvement, greater patient awareness of health issues, and heightened motivation for patients to lead healthier lifestyles; all this and more are among the boons of the digital mobile health revolution. Many physicians have learned to take advantage of — and contend with — the plethora of possibilities health-oriented apps and devices have opened up.

Healthcare Apps though are not replacement of doctors or caregivers, however it helps patients to communicate and be in touch with their physicians and healthcare providers .Such apps make it possible for physicians to stay on top of patient behavior in a way that was impossible until now. They also enable patients to keep a constant eye on their own conditions, taking a greater role in ensuring they remain healthy or recover faster from a disease.

 Across Playstore and Apple apps  Store, there are variable swath of free and premium medical apps on the market, some of which allow you to better understand pharmaceuticals while others work to diagnose your symptoms and prep you for an unforeseen medical emergency.

for example there are apps that enable patients to follow up with physicians after treatment. As demonstrated in a recent University of Toronto study, these tools could reduce the need for follow-up visits, lowering costs and ensuring better recovery for patients who often miss those follow-ups because they are feeling better.

Other dangers of health apps include the compromising of patient data (hacking is just as big of a problem for developers of health apps as it is for others), as well as the possibility an app that records inaccurate information could upload that bad data to patients’ EHR, spreading problematic information throughout their care cycle.

Healthcare professionals run some risks when prescribing apps to patients. On the pro side, patients may be more engaged; however, some may also view such an app as a replacement for their doctor. For instance, if an app says patients are doing well, they may decide they can skip an in-person appointment — a decision that could eventually come back to haunt them. Even worse, apps might undermine long-term doctor-patient relationships as patients begin to rely on apps instead of providers for information. Evidence on whether or not this is true is hard to come by.And, of course, there's the bottom line: healthcare facilities could end up losing income if patients begin to replace them with apps.