Let’s explore these questions and find out how Hucu.ai can become the much-needed bridge in the gap of healthcare communication. Hucu.ai is a HIPAA compliant free text messaging application that makes communication and collaboration between healthcare professionals, patients, and families seamless.
What Is Interprofessional Collaboration in Healthcare?
The World Health Organization explains it as “multiple health workers from different professional backgrounds work[ing] together with patients, families, carers (caregivers), and communities to deliver the highest quality of care.”
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation talks about the inherent power struggles and necessary culture changes in its definition of interprofessional collaboration in healthcare:
“Effective interprofessional collaboration promotes the active participation of each discipline in patient care, where all disciplines are working together and fully engaging patients and those who support them, and leadership on the team adapts based on patient needs … It fosters respect for the disciplinary contributions of all professionals.”
Interprofessional collaboration in healthcare is not a new concept. Back in 1972, the Institute of Medicine called for team-based patient care as a way to improve patient outcomes and safety. The idea became a trending topic in 2009 and since then the World Health Organization has stressed the need for interprofessional education as a way to improve the quality of care for patients and global health populations.
What Are The Benefits of Interprofessional Collaboration in Healthcare and Why Should It be a Priority for Organizations?
Interprofessional collaboration in healthcare is important because when healthcare organizations have a collaborative culture, they want to implement communication tools to support that culture so that they can take advantage of the following.
1. Improved Patient Care and Outcomes
For critical cases, a lot of doctors from different specialities come together to share their valuable insights about the patient. All of them will notice different symptoms and consider various possibilities. Together, they can have a more comprehensive understanding of the patient’s condition. However, these people are rarely in the same room. And they do not have a way to communicate in real-time.
To bridge that communication gap, the hospital needs to have a hospital communication technology like Hucu.ai in place. Hucu.ai allows the care teams to communicate and collaborate seamlessly and securely on the go or at the point of care through text and even video. Healthcare professionals can collaborate about a specific patient in a channel in which only relevant staff members can be ‘invited to join in’. Care teams can share their observations at each round and update the whole channel so that the next doctor can have those perspectives in mind when checking out the patient. It will improve the quality of care immensely.
Reduce Medical Errors and Save Hospital Costs Through Better Communication Via Hucu.
2. Reduced Medical Errors
Gap in communication in healthcare can lead to misdiagnosis, delayed medication – all of which are costly consequences. . According to Johns Hopkins, medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the U.S and such errors can cause 250,000 deaths each year.
EHR notes help but clinical communication is more important. This means having a group discussion in which all staff members give information for the nurses to treat their patients properly. Studies have shown that interprofessional collaboration in healthcare can help reduce preventable adverse drug reactions and decrease death rates.
Hucu.ai is a single platform for interprofessional collaboration so that healthcare professionals can keep each other updated with patient’s developments so that chances of errors can be reduced. When a nurse can contact the primary doctor any time in an emergency on Hucu.ai, she is more likely to not make a decision on her own that could be risky for the patient.
3. Faster Treatment
Much of healthcare can include a lot of waiting for example, patients waiting for physicians who in turn are waiting for their colleagues to get back to them with their advice and consultations. When such communication delays take place, valuable time is lost and a patient’s condition can worsen.
Again, Hucu.ai can bridge these interprofessional collaboration gaps with its communication technology and specific features. Hucu.ai can keep care team members connected so that they can reach out to the physician who has not entered notes into the EHR. Hucu.ai can allow healthcare professionals to tag urgent messages and notifications which means that care team members can receive a text as soon as lab results are in.
4. Improved Staff Relationships
Every health profession has its own culture and philosophy. When organizations add power structures, some members are able to speak more than others. That is not favourable to the patient or for the staff morale.
Interprofessional collaboration evens this out for everyone and acknowledges that everyone is playing a vital role on the care team. The sense of community can boost staff retention and recruitment. Hucu.ai has an exclusive feature to highlight star performers and to recognize a team members’ effort through “Hucu Honor Points”. This helps highlight hard-working staff members and create transparency in their recognition.
Increase Care Team Morale and Retention Through Hucu Honor Points.
Supporting Interprofessional Collaboration in Healthcare With a Mobile Solution
Employees in most industries are connected to each other through communication platforms. All they need is a smartphone. However, healthcare workers don’t have this experience at their work. This is because their employers have not invested in a HIPAA compliant communication platform which makes them rely on outdated technology like landlines, pagers, and fax machines. Hucu.ai is a FREE HIPAA Compliant text messaging application that hospitals can use to solve communication problems.
Get Ready To Transform Your Organization For
Value Based Care.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
