A Helping Hand with Clinical Mobility
To optimize their environments, healthcare organizations need a grasp on the current state of their people, processes and technology. But providers are generally not in the business of IT assessments, so finding a partner who understands their needs, especially from a healthcare perspective, is a solid first step to identifying areas for improvement.
For many providers, a common area for improvement is in clinical communication and collaboration. Clinical teams need to reach each other both inside and outside of facilities, but some organizations may not have efficient and effective methods to do that. Through CDW’s Clinical Mobility Workshop, clinical and IT stakeholders are brought together to identify their organization’s mobility goals and which workflows best fit those goals.
This workshop can provide a healthcare organization’s IT team with a better understanding of the type of workflows (secure communication, alert and alarm management, medication administration, wound documentation and more) that could benefit most from increased mobility.
As CDW Workspace Solution Architect Michael Goad shares: “We worked with one hospital that previously had four dedicated staffers taking photographs of patients’ wounds, uploading those photos into the EHR system, printing them out and then clipping the photo printouts onto bedside charts. By leveraging mobile tools, we replaced this with a system where nurses can take photos and import them into the EHR in just a few quick steps.”
If an organization hasn’t always had clear communication between IT and clinical teams, these Clinical Mobility Workshops are a proven way to build that muscle and improve collaboration.
READ MORE: Enhance existing healthcare investments with workflow optimization.
A Bright Spot for Optimizing EHRs
Another area for improvement that many healthcare organizations still struggle with is EHR interoperability and integrations.
“Integration is a key objective of optimization efforts. The effective integration of systems such as electronic health records (EHRs), collaboration platforms, patient management tools and point-of-care solutions can improve workflows and ensure that all clinicians have the data necessary to provide the care their patients need,” Ray and Larsen write.
Patients want access to their personal health records, especially because most of their providers use an EHR. But according to a 2021 Pew Trust survey, only 36 percent of patients said they have digital access (through a mobile app or an online patient portal) to their health records in all of their providers’ EHRs.
And, in a 2024 Experian Health report, 89 percent of patients said that the ability to schedule appointments anytime through digital means is important to them.
However, there is some friction when it comes to patients’ expectations for increased digital access and clinician burnout related to the EHR and administrative tasks. With the rise of generative artificial intelligence, there are emerging solutions to better support clinicians in the EHR by reducing workloads.
“Connecting EHRs with other clinical and administrative systems yields real-time access to patient information to enhance the quality of decision-making and reduce the likelihood of error. Among the key opportunities for this kind of integration are patient engagement and outreach, as well as assisted and augmented intelligence for clinical decision support and automated documentation,” write Ray and Larsen.
“Beyond clinical applications, integration greatly improves day-to-day efficiencies for staffers in all areas, from sharing patients’ dietary needs with the cafeteria to alerting custodial departments when a room needs to be cleaned. Ultimately, integration is a foundational change for clinicians and IT professionals alike.”
