Importance of Communication in Healthcare

Communication is vital in the healthcare industry.

If you are a leader in the industry of healthcare, then you will know the importance of caring for individuals during the most vulnerable time of their life. Today’s environment makes communication much harder to achieve. After all, hospital stays are much shorter and medical care is way more complex as well. Resources are much more constrained and there is now a growing need for families to have more information about their involvement and the responsibilities they have.

The Key to Safe Transitions

Hospital discharge is a huge challenge for patients and their loved ones. Discharge planning is very complex, and providers often have to communicate information that is tailored to the functional status of the patient as well as trying to convey any follow-up instructions. Busy clinicians are often forced to power through instructions when talking to patients and this can seriously impact comprehension. It can also affect their plan of care. In order to ease the transition from hospital to a patient’s home, leading health providers have developed workflows which help them with communication during this time. By adopting a good communication software, such as the one provided by Click4Assistance, you can keep in touch with your patients via WhatsApp, Messenger or anywhere else that is convenient. Patients can also ask for updates on things such as blood tests, after they have been discharged from hospital, making it easier to keep a solid line of communication open at all times. This is why online chat software is so crucial to the healthcare industry.

Follow-Up Care

Follow-up care is essential, and hospitals and doctors need to make sure that they engage with their patients. If you want to try and improve the level of communication that you have with your patients, then the best way to do this would be for you to focus on efficient methods. Live chat, video calls and even one-click phone calls can help you to contact patients faster and they can also help them to contact you if they have any questions. By opening up this kind of communication, you can be sure to give patients a higher level of care while increasing the quality of your own service. One example of making sure that your follow-up care is improved would be if someone has come to you with mental health problems. It may be that, as a GP, you recommend them to a third-party service. If you have WhatsApp communication integrated into your healthcare system, then it is very easy for you to check in with patients after they have left your practice. This is great if you want to ensure that they are happy with the service you have provided, and to also ensure that they know that their health is your priority. Things like this can help you to significantly improve the level of service you can provide.

Keeping Appointments

Sometimes a patient may need to reschedule an appointment that they have made with your healthcare service. If you do not provide your patients with an effective way to do this, then you may find that you end up with way more no-shows. This wastes everyone’s time, and it may even put more vulnerable patients at risk because they are not able to get booked in when they truly need it. If you are able to adopt a good communication software, then this will help your patients to communicate with you if they need to quickly change an appointment and it will also help you to update your patients if you know that you are going to be running late. This will stop too many people from congregating in your GP's office and it will also help you to make sure that you do not end up wasting your patient’s time, during busy periods.

Convenient Consultations

Effective communication will also allow you to communicate with your patients in a way that is convenient for you and them. If you only talk to your patients over the phone, then this will make it harder for them to find the time to ring you. It will also take up a considerable amount of your staff energy, and time. If you want to adopt a high level of communication across the board then having a live chat option, or a chatbot integrated into your site will help. Your patients can ask quick questions and they can find out the answers they need. If they would like to proceed with a consultation, then they can do so by booking an appointment through the online service. This is a very convenient way to ensure that your staff’s time is not taken up by mundane tasks and it also means that your patients can book their own appointments, even when a staff member is not available.

Test Result Delivery

Good communication will also help your patients with things like test result delivery. Quite often, GPs are so busy diagnosing patients, that they don’t have time to contact people regarding their test results. The great thing about having a good line of communication open, such as by investing in live chat or even video calls, is that you can give your patients the test results they need in a way that is convenient for them, and you. You also have the assurance of knowing that they are not waiting longer than they need to for the results and it also means that they can count on you to update them.

So having a good level of communication can prevent a lot of issues, such as people waiting longer than they need to receive test results and even avoiding no-shows at consultations. It can also help people to get the information they need regarding self-care if they have been discharged from hospital, and it can help them to book appointments without your staff constantly managing the phone. Good communication can sometimes save lives in the healthcare industry, and if you believe that yours is sub-par, then now is the time for you to try and make a positive change. Contact Click4Assistance to find out how we could help you.