It’s time for hospitals to revamp clinical communication — 4 experts weigh in on moving beyond pagers & faxes

Originally posted in Becker’s Hospital Review; Content sponsored by TigerConnect

Healthcare remains one of the few industries to rely on communication technologies like pagers and fax machines, both of which garnered widespread use in the 1980s but have since fallen by the wayside in most sectors.

“Everywhere else you have this clear and efficient form of communication that’s getting easier by the day with smartphones, yet when you walk into the four walls of a health system, where responsiveness is actually more important and collaboration is more critical … you’re taking the space capsule back 30 years,” Brad Brooks, co-founder and CEO of TigerConnect, said during a workshop at the Becker’s Hospital Review 9th Annual Meeting April 12 in Chicago.

For physicians, stilted communication isn’t just inconvenient — it can harm patients. A 2016 study in JAMA Internal Medicine identified improved communication between care teams — for example, streamlining the exchange of patient information between emergency departments and outpatient professionals — as a key to reducing avoidable 30-day readmissions among general medicine patients.

Read the full article here.