SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PatientSafe Solutions, a leader in clinical mobility solutions for the healthcare enterprise, is proud to release the first benchmark study on the State of Clinical Communication and Workflow in healthcare organizations, administered by HIMSS Analytics. The study, which surveyed over 300 clinicians, clinical informaticists and IT professionals, shows the industry amidst a mobile evolution as single-purpose communication devices become obsolete and smartphone-based platforms enable tighter integration between communication and clinical workflow needs. The survey took the pulse of practices nationwide asking respondents about current usage and future plans for mobile clinical communication.
“From what I see in the survey results, it looks like the primary use of mobile clinical communications solutions today is texting and other forms of communications, versus leveraging ‘smart’ capabilities -- like easier access to patient data, that are available today,” said Joyce Sensmeier, MS, RN-BC, CPHIMS, FHIMSS, FAAN, Vice President of Informatics for HIMSS North America. “To me, clinicians are still reliant on mobile devices for general communications, as opposed to a detailed clinical care focus, which makes sense given we’re still early in the evolution of smartphone use in healthcare settings.”
According to the data, 51% of IT respondents plan to implement smartphones for clinical communications, 43% of them in the next 24 months. 53% of IT respondents have plans to extend their mobile communication platform beyond secure messaging, with 71% intending to first tie nurse call and telemetry alarms into those mobile platforms.
Over 90% of clinicians and informaticists surveyed believe a unified app that integrates communications with clinical workflows will achieve better clinical, financial and operational outcomes. 77% of IT respondents report that they would like to integrate their communications solutions with clinical workflows and documentation.
“We have always believed in the promise and critical importance of an integrated smartphone-based solution that can deeply unify clinical workflow and care team communication,” stated Si Luo, President and CEO PatientSafe Solutions. “The survey validates our understanding of the key impediments within organizations that prevent them from achieving a truly integrated solution. One of the biggest takeaways from this survey is that healthcare institutions can save money and achieve better outcomes if they stop treating selection and deployment of communications products as just a departmental-level project and start treating it as a cross-functional enterprise-wide initiative.”
The survey findings suggest that many early Clinical Communications and Collaboration (CC&C) adopters have yet to fully realize the potential of available solutions, often because first generation technologies had singular functions such as secured texting and could not fully integrate with clinical systems or real-time clinical workflows. These limitations have led to frustration for IT teams struggling to build a scalable infrastructure and consolidate devices and for clinicians who are forced to juggle multiple, single-purpose applications and devices. Participants in the survey also indicated that, looking forward, they will start to demand more clinical workflow and care coordination capability from their clinical communication vendors.
The survey was administered in November 2017 and included 302 respondents in clinical (49 percent), IT (31 percent) and informatics (20 percent) roles, with 31 percent working in multi-hospital health systems, 29 percent in stand-alone hospitals and 22 percent in critical access hospitals. The distribution of organizations participating in the survey mirrored that of the 5,465 hospitals nationwide, where there is roughly a 40 to 60 percentage split between smaller and larger organizations.
PatientSafe will be sharing results in detail at a HIMSS18 Breakfast Panel Reception, Wednesday, March 7, 7:30 a.m. in the Grand Luxe Café at the Palazzo Hotel, RSVP here. For key results and an in-depth exploration of survey findings, download the infographic and whitepaper here.
About PatientSafe Solutions
Based in San Diego, Calif., PatientSafe Solutions is leading the way in clinical mobility solutions for healthcare. PatientSafe delivers measurable safety and quality improvements through a mobile platform that extends an organization’s EHR, clinical and communication infrastructure, and fits seamlessly into care team workflows. The company’s PatientTouch® platform simplifies care team collaboration by consolidating text, talk, alerts, EMR data, clinical workflows and customizable care interventions, all in one mobile app, on one device, to eliminate harm, reduce waste, and improve productivity. For more than a decade, PatientTouch has helped clinicians both in and outside the hospital streamline care delivery, increase quality, and lower costs. For more information, please visit the company’s website at patientsafesolutions.com.
About HIMSS
HIMSS is a global voice, advisor and thought leader of health transformation through health information and technology with a unique breadth and depth of expertise and capabilities to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of health, healthcare and care outcomes. HIMSS designs and leverages key data assets, predictive models and tools to advise global leaders, stakeholders and influencers of best practices in health information and technology, so they have the right information at the point of decision.
HIMSS drives innovative, forward thinking around best uses of information and technology in support of better connected care, improved population health and low cost of care. HIMSS is a not-for-profit, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, with additional offices in North America, Europe, United Kingdom and Asia.