As a healthcare leader, you likely went into business to better peoples' lives.

You want to improve the patient experience and make it as efficient as possible. However, there are a lot of factors outside of your individual control that impact the type of care you are able to provide each patient. That’s why it’s becoming more important than ever to have the right technology, staff and environment in place to support accurate care delivery.

In a world where it seems like every time you blink there is a new digital trend changing the way we communicate, it can be hard to keep up. You’re not alone in this challenge.

Today’s healthcare organizations are working to achieve lower costs and increase productivity without compromising outcomes. To do so, it can help to focus on improving integration and communication through information mobility — the ability to capture, transform and manage information when, where and how you need it.

 

Indeed, by taking steps to improve internal and external information management, hospitals, IDNs and health systems can see fast, near-term results in three major areas:

1. Real-time communication and collaboration. According to an IDC Health Insights study1, 47.5 percent of healthcare employees need to access more than six data repositories for the information they need to process billing statements and patient treatment documentation. Yet only 16.2 percent of hospitals surveyed enable search across all data sources. Care teams have a high need for remote access to applications, including from their mobile devices, and for finding and integrating information from different platforms. Information mobility helps to integrate business and clinical process workflows across departments.

2. Educating patients during transitions in care to improve outcomes and patient experience. It’s not only important to communicate clearly with patients during care, but also to educate them on the steps needed to stay healthy once they leave the hospital walls. Supporting consistent and accurate information sharing on digital devices and across platforms helps guarantee that patients get the tools and resources they need to successfully recover — and ultimately helps you reduce re-admissions and improve HCAHPS scores.

3. Reductions in siloed systems that increase costs and inhibit innovation. Managing siloed systems is expensive and requires IT resources with diverse skill sets to support the wide variety of technologies that can be in place. Developing interfaces between these systems is costly and time and resource intensive. Instead, discover where information silos might be bogging you down to create more integrated communication throughout the health system.

Bottom line: By making information as mobile as your people are, you will build an environment that enables you to improve the patient experience through greatly improved processes and efficiency.