Secure Messaging Case Studies & White Papers

1. Integrating Epic’s EHR With SUNY Upstate Medical University’s Call Centers To Save Time And Enhance Patient Caller Experience 7/24/2018

   SUNY Upstate Medical University wanted to improve their healthcare call center performance and reduce caller wait times, shorten the time spent on each call, lower the call center’s abandonment rates, and provide a better caller and patient experience.

2. The Power Of Effective Clinical Communication 3/19/2018

   Healthcare is built on sacred and trusted relationships between patients and their clinicians. As medicine has moved into the 21st century, we’ve lost our focus on patients’ narratives and knowing one another’s stories as care team members. As a result, we have lost human connections and have created a broken healthcare delivery system that leaves patients and families frustrated and nurses and physicians burned out.

3. Strengthening Patient Safety And Engagement Through System Standards 3/19/2018

   System standards for optimal communication in healthcare are essential to allowing human connection to flourish. And just what are they? They are policies, processes, guidelines, and even unwritten norms that govern how communication should take place in various situations.

4. Hospital Secure Messaging: 7 Lessons Learned 1/25/2018

   As I was going through the metal detector at the airport, I tossed my pager in the bin. The security official looked at me and said, “You work in healthcare, don’t you?” I asked, “Why do you say that?” She said, “No one else uses pagers except for people in healthcare.” Her comment struck me; I thought, Wow. She is totally right.

5. Seven Elements Of Effective Clinical Communication 1/25/2018

   “The number one problem with communication in healthcare is that people ask things like, ‘is there blood in your urine?’ Patients say no, because they think they’re supposed to see literal blood. Doctors need to ask this in a much simpler way, such as, ‘Is your urine any color other than clear or pale yellow?’ We don’t like to talk about gross things. That’s something that happened with my husband, Fred. They just checked the box and ruled out cancer. He had orange urine for a year. But he didn’t know that meant blood in his urine. He made the assumption that he wasn’t drinking enough water. He knew his urine could get darker if he was dehydrated or if he ate different things.”

6. 4 Steps To Address The Joint Commission’s Sentinel Event Alert On Hand-Off Communication 1/25/2018

   “I’m bringing a patient up,” says Mark Frye, a nurse in the PACU. “Ted Jones, 33 years old. He came in through the ED. We believe he was in a motor vehicle collision. He has an open compound fracture of the left femur with external repair. He remains unresponsive with a head injury of unknown cause.

7. Choosing An Efficient HIPAA-Compliant Communication Solution At Jackson-Madison County General Hospital 1/8/2018

   Beginning in the 1960s, pager-like systems were put to use and quickly became the industry standard for sending messages. Over the last few decades, the way hospitals communicate sensitive information has evolved, and their technology needs have changed to secure Protected Health Information (PHI) in accordance with HIPAA rules. In light of this, hospitals are now searching for secure communication systems that are also more robust.

8. Automate Your Clinical Communications To Improve Care Team Response Times 1/8/2018

   Healthcare organizations strive to provide the best care for their patients. Automating the process of notifying the appropriate medical staff about a patient’s needs is key to providing appropriate and timely care.

9. Reducing Readmissions: How A Post-Discharge Phone Call Reduces Hospital Readmissions 10/31/2017

   Each year, approximately 16 percent of patients in United States hospitals are readmitted within 30 days of discharge. Readmissions and the additional treatments they entail are costly to both patients and insurers. Increasingly, they are costly to hospitals as well. A portion of readmissions are considered unavoidable, such as a planned readmission for chemotherapy, or an unexpected adverse event unrelated to the original diagnosis. However, many other readmissions are considered preventable through high quality clinical care and effective patient education and discharge procedures.

10. Effective Communications: Steps For Automating, Streamlining And Improving Healthcare Communications 10/31/2017

    The average 500-bed hospital in the United States loses $4 million each year directly due to inefficient communication, according to a study published in the Journal of Healthcare Management. Effective and efficient communication is essential to fulfilling a healthcare organization’s mission of providing high quality care. It is also crucial to eliminating unnecessary costs and maintaining an organization’s fiscal health.