Putting Patients First: Digital Transformation in the Healthcare Industry

The healthcare industry is about taking care of people, but we often lose sight of that. By implementing a digital internal communications strategy, medical organizations such as hospitals, assisted living centers, and home healthcare providers, can realign their missions to put patients first. This happens when every employee is engaged in the communication lifecycle of patient care.

In the healthcare industry frontline employees make up 50% of the workforce, and many of them work directly with patients. A team communications app connects a patient’s entire care team, including frontline workers. A more informed team is able to connect with patients and deliver better care. And in the healthcare world, information, or lack of it, can mean the difference between life and death.

By providing your entire medical team with a company app and including everyone in internal communications, you deliver better care and improve the patient experience by:

• Elevating employee engagement through communication
• Addressing issues more efficiently by communicating clearly
• Real-time, secure communication for a time-sensitive industry
• Patient-provider continuity

More Engaged Employees Deliver Better Patient Care

In many cases, it’s the primary medical providers who are included in a medical facility’s communication. By including your mobile healthcare workers, you’re engaging them on a new level. From lab technicians to your home health aides, providing information directly to every member of a patient care team adds value to their job, giving them confidence in their performance, an invaluable quality of a healthcare worker as they engage with clients.

A company app also gives frontline healthcare workers a way to communicate important updates to a patient’s main provider in real time. The ability to become more invested in care management creates an employee who is more invested in their work. And a better employee experience leads to better patient care.

A Team Communication App Can Help Save Lives

A recent study found that miscommunication between healthcare professionals lead to over 1,700 deaths and cost $1.7 billion. From big gaps in communication to undelivered messages, lives were lost due to inefficient internal communications in the healthcare industry.

With a team communication app, healthcare workers don’t wait to pass patient folders to one another, or have to always log in to a computer. With a team communication app, providers, who are often on the move, can read vital messages delivered directly to their mobile devices.

Real-time, Secure Communication

In the healthcare world, time-sensitive takes on a whole new meaning, especially for The Red Cross, an organization that responds to global emergency health crisis situations. When one region of Germany’s Red Cross needed a reliable, secure team communication tool to keep pace with their fast-moving operation, they chose Beekeeper to manage their communications. The internal communications platform was a fit for these three top reasons:

1. Beekeeper’s easy interface allows healthcare workers to focus on the patients and not troubleshooting technology.
2. The real-time capabilities of the app supports the urgent and immediate work the Red Cross provides.
3. The top priority of any healthcare communication is data security and patient privacy. Beekeeper has HIPAA security and is ISO 27001:2013 certified.

In any global health emergency, this Red Cross unit relies on the Beekeeper team communication app to coordinate their response so they can take care of their patients.

Better Communications Means Continuity of Care

The patient-provider relationship is one of the most important elements of delivering quality care. Patients build a trusting partnership with their providers who know the patient’s history and follow them on their medical journey. But the healthcare industry industry has one of the highest turnover rates of any field. In some frontline positions the rate is as high as 100%. The cost of replacing an aide, technician or patient care specialist is $4,000. It’s a huge cost to medical organizations. But it’s an even greater cost to the patient-provider relationship.

When a medical provider adopts a digital internal communication application to connect with their staff, employee engagement goes up, and so does retention. In this field that means a continuity of care between medical providers and their patients.

Including your entire healthcare team in internal communications through a company app creates a better employee experience and a worthwhile investment in both your team and your clients. With a simple shift in your internal communications strategy, you’ve designed a patient-centered approach to healthcare.

To learn how Beekeeper can help your healthcare organization, download our case study with an assisted living community.