Patients of any hospital, clinic, or specialty center are often frustrated with the difficulty they have reaching the correct person within a healthcare system. Communication challenges can lead to missed appointments, billing issues, clunky patient information distribution between multidisciplinary care teams, and disengaged patients due to lack of follow-up communication.
Consider your current system for appointment scheduling. In many cases, patients need to reach a receptionist who will then transfer them to the correct department(s). This requires at least two employees to be available at the time of the call. These employees most likely have patients in front of them waiting to be helped. A cloud-based healthcare communication platform is the key to a telephony-enabled patient portal. The platform can intuitively route the patient to the appropriate facility representative for scheduling or questions. This will optimize the use of resources as well as increase patient satisfaction.
There is nothing more frustrating than being treated like a brand-new patient every time they get on the phone with their clinic or hospital. It’s important for them to feel like a human, not a data point throughout the duration of their experience. Cloud-based communication will allow them to swiftly make appointments, select options for reminders, as well as choose follow-up contact of their choice.
In February 2019, this survey showed that the top benefit of automated appointment reminders was a reduction in no-shows. The average cost of no-show appointments is $400/day per physician. Talk about a huge loss for a facility with many physicians!
The adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR) was a huge step forward for healthcare systems. The transition to EHR made it much easier for providers as well as patients to see their health records and prior treatments quickly, but it doesn’t necessarily speed up communication processes between care teams.
The current information and communication exchanges are still very siloed without the implementation of a cloud-based platform. This is because the electronic databases and systems that nurses vs. lab techs (for example) can access are disparate. This can cause long time periods between when a lab test result is posted, and when the nurse remembers to check back for results. With a cloud-based communication platform, mobile collaboration tools (voice, secure messaging, video, and assigned tasks) can be accessed and utilized across care teams to notify the nurse, physician or specialist of new results or patient information in real-time. Accurate, and efficient cross care team collaboration results in a better experience for the patient, as well as creating a highly efficient environment for care teams.
Every medical professional knows that the most successful treatment stories have one thing in common, patient engagement. If a patient is not actively involved with their treatment plan or does not feel confident contacting someone for help, they will not see desired improvement. Cloud-based communication platforms transform the patients entire experience from appointment to follow-up call. They feel comfortable throughout the entire process because they can easily reach someone on the phone, through an online chat, or voice message. They are automatically reminded of their appointment, and then reached out to again after their appointment. Each one of these steps plays a key role in how they perceive the care they are receiving. They want to know that each member of their care team is knowledgeable about their condition and working with them each step of the way.
Medical professionals and care teams are busy. Cloud-based communication can take the guess work out of who has been notified of a lab result, a follow-up call, or missed appointment.
Leave the HIPAA compliant, Ring Central cloud-based communication systems to us, your patients need your full attention.
What does the term “cloud” mean to you? Does it refer to the place where your photos are stored, or perhaps your music library? What about in terms of a healthcare communication network? A cloud-based communication platform transforms your legacy phone system into a powerful and secure suite of voice, messaging, video chat, and contact center technology.
Matrix-NDI partners with Ring Central to provide cloud-based communication platforms that will support HIPAA requirements. We and our partners are always willing to sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA).