Clinical communication is the essence of responding faster and enhancing patient outcome levels. Daily, clinical communication is taking place in the form of the provider updating their care team regarding a patient’s situation and when a hospital transfers patient records to another healthcare institution. Effective clinical communication helps to reduce the chances of mortality when patient care or treatment is delayed.
Clinical communication in today’s world
These days’ physicians make use of their tablets, and medical apps on smartphones to secure messaging, voice, and critical alerts—ideally on a single platform. Therefore the communication exchange is not limited to a particular communication channel. Usually, these modes of communication are HIPAA compliant to protect patient information from cyber security threats.
Who is involved in the chain of clinical communication?
Clinical communication can take place within a hospital or with different healthcare facilities. Any person who handles patient information is directly a part of the clinical communication chain. This may include, healthcare providers, nurses, support staff, and department heads in healthcare facilities.
Every person involved in the clinical communication process needs to ensure that the message transferred regarding patient data is accurate and up-to-date. If the information is inaccurate then it can have fatal consequences on the health of a patient and miscommunication leads to cost failures
Types of clinical communication
There are mainly four types of clinical communications that take place and make way for improving health outcomes.
- Care collaboration between healthcare teams
- exchange of patient information between departments
- Care coordination between facilities
- Provider and patient communication
How to enhance clinical communication?
This article will share 5 helpful tips to improve clinical communication that can reduce any chances of errors and help providers respond promptly to offer the right treatment.
- Don’t use the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Software for communication – EHR Software systems are essential to streamline daily clinical, administrative, and financial workflows. The software system does offer a communication capability however, it is not designed to provide real-time communication which is required by the physician. The EMR software does not include care teams outside the hospital facility for example a family caregiver. A successful clinical communication system will imitate the consumer communication experience.
- Use a single communication platform – It is advised that one communication platform is used across the healthcare organization for communication between care teams.
- Remove pagers – Relying on pagers is not smart as the technology is almost outdated. Pagers are expensive and inefficient and an unreliable means of communication which can result in errors in clinical communication. A hospital can replace pager communication and implement a clinical communication that uses WIFI. The default settings in the WIFI system can specify when recipients have received a notification.
- Get ready now – Healthcare organizations should implement a clinical communication system without wasting any time. The system should support the right exchange of information to the right people involved so accurate and timely decisions can be made for high-quality patient care.
- Monitor the communication system – The clinical communication deployed needs to be monitored to identify any room for improvement.
