What is Mobile Care Coordination?
Renee S. Bessette, Vice President of Marketing & Operations
LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/reneebessette
As healthcare embraces mobile devices and BYOD programs, providers are the first to benefit from the dramatic improvements to the speed and quality of their communication.
Providers today are taking advantage of technology already in their pockets. Over 80 percent of physicians now own smartphones and increasing numbers are using them at work. In a recent study by Deloitte, 43 percent of doctors are using mobile devices in their daily clinical activities, whether to access EHRs, e-prescribing, or communicating with colleagues; more are using mobile devices for clinical reference tools. Compared to outdated (and now displaced text pagers), secure messaging is accelerating the speed of and improving the quality of communication between providers.
Providers may find familiarity with secure messaging and the inherent benefits of mobile communication, yet they still face the challenge of “Who’s on first, what’s on second?” in terms of knowing exactly with whom to contact. A 2012 Institute of Medicine report cited nearly $120 billion of waste in healthcare due to inefficiently delivered services because of care fragmentation and operational inefficiencies. Much of this can be attributed to poor communication due to a lack of care team awareness. Additional studies cite the lack of care coordination by providers as having a significant impact not only on a healthcare organization’s financial health, but even moreso, impacting patient safety.
While many consider secure mobile messaging as an adequate communication tool for providers, healthcare organizations should consider it a starting point for real-time provider communication and collaboration. In the era of integrated delivery networks and ACOs, and with the pressures to meet Meaningful Use Stage 2 criteria, integrated mobile tools that can enable providers to virtually collaborate across a patient’s care team will be essential to the quality of care delivery and patient outcomes.
In this series, we will explore the challenges healthcare providers and IT professionals face, and the mobile tools that can help providers to better manage information among care teams, make more informed clinical decisions, and ensure safer care transitions.
Renee S. Bessette is the Vice President of Marketing and Operations at Care Thread, a provider of secure mobile messaging and care team collaboration solutions for healthcare providers. She has extensive experience in global marketing, brand management, and educational programs. She previously worked at Honeywell Safety Products and Sperian Protection. Follow Care Thread on Twitter @carethread.