The Chronic Problem of Communication: Major Issues with Outdated Healthcare Communication Systems

Poor communication is never a good thing, but when communication breakdowns happen in healthcare it can lead to significant flaws and failures, often at the expense of patient health.  

Healthcare Communication is Challenging for a Number of Reasons

• Healthcare is complex and unpredictable. One patient can have various professionals providing care often over several unconnected locations. This can create dangerous gaps between care coordination, leaving limited opportunities for interaction and a higher likelihood for miscommunication.
• There is no professional communication or team collaboration standard. Differences in education and training amongst healthcare practitioners can result in diverse and disjointed communication methods. While in most cases diversity is embraced in the workplace, diversity in communication can lead to ineffective communication and misunderstandings.
• Many hospitals and clinics are still using outdated technology and communication systems. While most industries have swapped out their fax machines for email, pagers for smartphones, and mail for electronic communications, healthcare clinics are still using these outdated, inefficient communication technologies – and it’s costing everyone. If a healthcare provider isn’t able to quickly access patient information and collaborate with colleagues efficiently, not only is time and funding wasted, but delivery and quality of patient care are inhibited.

 

The Impact of Outdated Communication Technologies in Healthcare

In the absence of effective communication systems, healthcare providers face many challenges. Communicating and collaborating as a united caregiving team becomes difficult and unlikely, which inhibits preventative care and can lead to medical and medication errors. Valuable time is wasted every day dealing with outdated, cumbersome technology, time that otherwise could be spent better managing patient care. Patient discharge time is lengthened, an unnecessary cost that could otherwise be avoided. And the communication breakdowns that result contribute to provider dissatisfaction and rapid turnover. Outdated communication technologies are also putting patients at risk. Lack of communication between patient and provider can lead to wrong treatment procedures, treatment delays, treatment adherence challenges, medication errors, reduced quality of care and ultimately can result in patient harm and significant health complications.  

Solving the Chronic Communication Problem, Securely

Poor communication caused by outdated technologies is perhaps the most tragic challenge that healthcare is facing. We have seen extraordinary advancements in technology that have enabled us to connect like never before. So, why are we using 20^th-century technologies to empower our 21^st-century health system? Traditional methods such as fax, mail, and telephone are unreliable, slow, unconnected, and insecure. Mainly, security and data privacy concerns hinder the adoption of digital communication systems in healthcare. However, Brightsquid’s Secure-Mail provides the security required to send protected health information to every stakeholder in patient health, while expediting communication workflows. By adopting a secure communication system like Brightsquid, you can:

• - Build custom workflow automations around your clinic to optimize patient management with faster, more accessible secure communication.
• - Maximize productivity, accelerate treatment, and even add billable services with advanced medical-grade messaging.
• - By addressing non-urgent cases remotely, you make more in office visit time available for urgent cases. Wait times are reduced, and your patients get better sooner.
• - Send patients follow-up messages rather than waiting for the next appointment (or repeatedly trying to reach them by phone) to remind, or measure effectiveness, of treatment plans.

Brightsquid makes sharing patient information faster, easier, and more compliant than ever before. If you’re ready to say GOODBYE to antique communication technology, and HELLO to secure, medical-grade messaging for your practice, contact us today sales@brightsquid.com.

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