The state of communication in healthcare is fragmented at best
A survey of healthcare leaders and patients conducted by TigerConnect, a provider of team collaboration software, examined challenges in healthcare communication. The results show a fragmented state of communication in healthcare, with many organizations still heavily reliant on landline phones, fax machines, and pagers.Here are the impacts of using outdated communication tools.
Care coordination is difficult.
39 percent of healthcare professionals said it is difficult or very difficult to communicate with one or more groups of care team members.
Non-clinical staff members underestimate communication difficulties.
Non-clinical staff are 68 percent less likely to say communication problems impact patients on a daily basis.
Most patients were frustrated by a recent hospital stay.
74 percent of U.S. adults who spent time in the hospital in the last two years indicated being frustrated by one or more inefficient communications processes
Patients’ preferred methods of communication don’t match what practices are actually using.
Patient portals caused the widest gap, with 51 percent of healthcare organizations indicating they use patient portals to communicate with patients, yet only 20 percent of patients actually prefer this method of communication.
Patient portals aren’t as popular as texting.
Health organizations using patient portals as the top method of communication were 29 percent less likely to rate their communication with patients as effective or very effective when compared to those using texting as a top method of communication.
Lapses in care are more common when secure messaging is not used throughout an organization.
There is a 50 percent greater likelihood of daily communication disconnects that impact patients when secure messaging is not prevalent.
