From misdiagnoses to costly and even life-threatening mistakes, medical safety experts have found that poor communications result in 1.7 billion in malpractice costs and almost 2,000 preventable deaths annually. While hospitals and specialty clinics may have best-in-class care professionals and state-of-the-art equipment, the industry is still impeded by inefficiencies and siloed operations that negatively impact communications. Clinical Collaboration Platforms have the power to transform care by connecting fragmented teams, systems, and information.
What was initially developed as a secure texting solution for healthcare professionals has grown to encompass a wide range of capabilities. Today’s solutions can integrate with existing hospital systems, including the EHR, nurse call stations, patient engagement, physician scheduling, alarm management, and more. From updating the care team and patient family members during surgery to alerting care team members of critical labs, this transformational technology is now being applied to help increase efficiency, lower costs, and improve patient outcomes.
However, not all clinical collaboration tools are created equal. Healthcare technology buyers vetting clinical collaboration platforms should take into account these five considerations before making a decision.
All-in-One Clinical Collaboration Checklist
Use this checklist to review key features and comparisons of clinical collaboration platforms.
1. Does the solution offer advanced integration capabilities?
Consumer-grade secure texting won’t cut it. You need an enterprise-grade clinical collaboration platform that will integrate seamlessly with your organization’s other systems. Advanced integration capabilities:
Make alerts from the EHR like critical labs and ADTs possible
Power nurse call notifications and alarms from physiological monitoring equipment
Support video calls over Wi-Fi and role-based messaging
Sync physician and patient scheduling systems for continuous care
2. Can you count on high uptime reliability?
Continuous uptime is a must-have for any clinical collaboration platform. Maintaining a minimum of four 9’s (99.99%) keeps teams productive and ensures proper care coordination. Cloud-based solutions offer the added advantage of never having to be taken offline for maintenance.
3. Does the vendor have a track record of deployment at scale?
Implementing a clinical collaboration platform is a big commitment. Verify that the vendor you choose will not only tailor the solution to the unique ways your organization delivers care but that they also have a proven track record of supporting large-scale deployments (10,000+ users across multiple sites with multiple integrations).
4. Is the solution cloud-based with low TCO?
Cloud-based solutions offer significantly lower ownership costs and downtime compared to on-premise solutions. In addition to uptime reliability, the cloud avoids hefty hardware costs and requisite software updates. By choosing a cloud-based solution, you sidestep those concerns – freeing up budget for more useful hardware like smartphones and workstations.
5. Can the vendor offer fast implementation and a simple user experience?
Large-scale implementations can often feel daunting, but onboarding with a cloud-based clinical collaboration solution should be different. Look for these indicators to confirm that deployment will go smoothly.
A seasoned implementation team
Self-guided user training for various expertise levels
A robust user community
Easy onboarding for end-users and admin
A customer success manager
The role of a communication platform has evolved to encompass a wide range of capabilities beyond secure texting, and there’s a lot to consider. Feature-rich, easy-to-use, and extremely reliable, the TigerConnect Clinical Collaboration Platform replaces unsecure SMS with a HIPAA-compliant solution, making your teams immediately more efficient and effective.
Ricardo Estrada is a senior product marketing manager at TigerConnect. He is responsible for marketing and communicating the value TigerConnect products deliver.
