Thanks to advances in information technology, the healthcare industry has experienced many positive changes.
Health IT is streamlining processes, increasing efficiencies and helping to improve patient care and safety. For example digitizing a patient’s medical records using EHR systems make it easier to track, share and access patient information. Meanwhile, cloud-computing and hand-held devices offer anytime-anywhere, secure access to patient information.
Technological breakthroughs continue to revolutionize the way healthcare is delivered. Yet despite these advances, there are several important areas in healthcare that are slow to catch on to the benefits of going digital. One such area is surgical case communication and coordination.
For many surgery centers and hospitals, surgery coordination involves a fragmented mess of emails, text messages, phone calls, white boards, and word of mouth. Significant time is spent coordinating surgery schedules and ensuring everyone involved in a case including physician office staff, nurses, surgeons, anesthesiologists, vendor reps, and others remain current on changes and requests. Meanwhile, without consistent processes for communicating and managing updates in real-time, errors continue to occur resulting in wasted time and unnecessary risk to the patient.
Fortunately, with advances in health IT surgery centers and hospitals alike can replace antiquated surgery communication and coordination methods with easy-to-use cloud-based technology. Unfortunately, most organizations do not utilize this technology simply because they are unaware it exists.
Surgery coordination and communication systems allow real-time schedule and patient demographic information to be quickly pulled from the physician’s office and populated into the system to create a case list. Case teams can be easily added, enabling communication and coordination to ensue around the case. Automated alerts are sent to every person involved in the case, including vendor reps, each time an update or request is made, and everyone remains current on case details. Because these systems are cloud-based, information is easily accessible to those who need it, regardless of location, either through a laptop or mobile device such as an iPhone or Android.
The benefits associated with surgery coordination systems also extend to patients and caregivers. Unlike traditional whiteboards, surgery coordination systems offer real-time updates and a visual representation of where a patient is at each step of the procedure. Digital surgery boards and text message alerts inform key people as they follow the care process before, during, and after their surgery. The technology decreases distractions from overhead pagers and inter-department phone calls. Immediately after a patient checks in, his/her family members can see where they are in real time. These boards are also being used in pre-op and post-op to provide doctors and nurses with a quick view of patient status and other relevant case information.
Surgery communication issues don’t have to exist. There are ways to make the process safer, more efficient, and less stressful for everyone including surgeons, staff, vendor reps and patients. As we prepare to start a New Year, surgery centers and hospitals have the opportunity to get it right by leveraging advances in technology to streamline surgery coordination. What are you waiting for?
By Gavin Fabian, CEO of Casetabs
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