Success in the healthcare industry in 2014 will require improved communication between provider organizations to better coordinate care and between providers and patients to increase engagement and promote healthy behaviors. It will also require improved communication between providers within a care setting to create workflow efficiency and enhance patient safety.
The potential gains from improving communication within a healthcare organization, along with the proliferation of mobile devices among clinicians, will create an increased demand for secure, HIPAA-compliant messaging capabilities into 2014.
Amcom Software, a critical communications software vendor, has been helping hospitals optimize how staff members communicate with each other for more than 25 years, says Brian Edds, vice president of product strategy at Amcom. The company's communication solutions employ many features to help clinicians connect quickly, including using the hospital's on-call schedule to identify the correct recipient for a call and a messaging system to alert nurses of new laboratory reports or other tests.
"We're solving something that has proven to be a challenge for hospitals over the years," says Mr. Edds.
More recently, Amcom has started focusing more on secure messaging technology, responding to consumer feedback. "About three or four years ago, our customers started talking to us about secure messaging technology," says Mr. Edds. An annual customer survey also has revealed customers want the speed and user-friendliness of texting, providing all regulatory privacy requirements are met. "As you or I know, texting other people is a lot more efficient," he says, as it is often quicker than a phone call and does not require both people to be available at the same time.
Based on this customer feedback, Amcom developed a secure messaging solution currently used by more than 600 organizations. "Many of the customers are just getting started, just getting their feet wet," says Mr. Edds. However, a significant number of customers have moved beyond the initial implementation, which is simply having clinicians message each other and confirm receipt, to the next phases of the implementation where more types of information, such as lab results or patient alerts for nurses, are being received on clinicians' mobile devices.
The secure messaging system has proven successful among Amcom's current customers. "We're seeing efficiencies gained from not having to call people back and from being able to send protected health information," says Mr. Edds. "We're seeing this across the board."
Implementing a secure messaging solution does bring with it new issues, such as whether the hospital or clinicians pay for the mobile devices and networks, especially when the phones are often used outside of work for personal communication. However, Mr. Edds believes secure messaging will see a surge of interest in 2014.
"It's going to be the thing everyone's talking about," he says. "Now that we have more information to exchange, it's going to be about having the secure communication system to match."
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