Digital innovation has led to improved patient care within and outside hospitals. But frustration remains among healthcare providers and patients who feel overloaded with too many technologies that don’t effectively transition from one aspect of care to the next.
Cherry Drulis, RN, is Director of Healthcare Mobile B2B at Samsung Electronics America. She was at Samsung’s HIMSS24 booth 2667 and spoke about the implications of patchwork digital healthcare technologies, including healthcare worker burnout, patient confusion and inefficient communication between healthcare teams.
We interviewed her to understand why she believes a streamlined care continuum based on intuitive, secure mobile technology and wearables – including the recently announced Samsung Galaxy Ring – will be critical to making the hospital of the future a reality.
Q. This week you talked about the frustration you see among healthcare providers and patients who feel overburdened by healthcare technologies that don’t work properly. Please share what you told the participants.
A. Medical technology has made rapid progress in recent years, but clinical communications technology has not yet caught up in many healthcare organizations. While many leaders focus on the employee experience as much as the patient experience, doctors, nurses and allied health professionals continue to experience unnecessary stress due to issues related to information delivery and data access.
Across the spectrum, digital health solutions can alleviate pressure on an increasingly overburdened and sometimes under-resourced medical system. Given the struggle to retain and support skilled staff, hospitals have the opportunity to improve overall performance by modernizing their clinical communications infrastructure.
However, too many different devices, operating systems, and disparate apps make it difficult for IT to truly optimize communications and workflows.
To increase productivity without overwhelming physicians, hospitals should strive to seamlessly integrate mobile technology into their workflows, giving doctors and nurses real-time patient data and essential communication channels needed to deliver high-quality care and an exceptional patient experience, without sacrificing anything to add to their already demanding workload.
Q. You also discuss what you see as a patchwork of digital health systems. What do you mean by this, and what’s the problem?
A. As hospitals deploy more devices and communications solutions, pressure on IT resources increases and security is compromised. Efficient and effective IT management of mobile clinical solutions requires consolidated platforms, developer-friendly integration options, and robust device configuration and management capabilities.
That means standardizing devices and maximizing control over them. Another key way to reduce the burden on IT is to invest in unified communications solutions that include voice, SMS and video conferencing solutions that are compatible with existing legacy technology. Without such investments, IT departments will be faced with the challenge of managing an increasing number of vendors and software platforms.
Q. The consequences of this patchwork can include provider burnout, patient confusion, and inefficient communication among healthcare teams. Your company’s answer is mobile technology and wearables, including your new Samsung Galaxy Ring. Discuss these technologies and how they can help.
A. Physicians and healthcare providers can use a single mobile device to perform a wide range of tasks, including multi-channel communication with nurses, access to electronic health records, virtual patient consultations, remote monitoring of bedside equipment and pharmaceutical scanning. A smartphone can support collaboration with colleagues and communication with patients and provide real-time insights to improve patient care.
With all the contacts and data they need at their fingertips, doctors can get the help and information needed to treat patients effectively, efficiently and, if necessary, remotely. This integrated approach streamlines healthcare, improving both provider performance and patient care.
Wearables have also transformed patient care. Major healthcare systems in the US are using wearables to deliver home care that improves long-term patient outcomes. These devices are particularly useful in providing care after major health events, as they allow patients to recover and keep their doctors informed about their condition from the comfort of their own home.
Hospital networks using wearables for this purpose have seen significant reductions in readmissions and improvements in patients’ overall health, with much higher completion rates than programs that require repeated visits to the doctor’s office.
Mobile devices and wearables can meaningfully leverage the power of data across the care continuum, as long as they don’t hinder productivity, communication and, most importantly, patient care.
Regardless of the devices deployed, they should be part of a larger connected continuum of care that is rooted in improving every stage of the patient journey – from the moment they first enter a hospital parking lot, to patient engagement at the bed for education and entertainment and ultimately to the seamless transition and management of care after a patient is discharged.
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