On-call management’s long tail At its best, on-call management in healthcare can be labeled as inefficient. Yet, on-call has a long tail. Poor communication starts with poor on-call hygiene which hinders subsequent communications. Physicians, nurses and other caregivers do not spend enough time communicating about the patient’s needs because they have difficulty reaching other clinicians and … Continued
Do you know how pager inefficiencies impact your hospital ? Hospital paging system use reached its zenith in 1994. While pager use has dropped in the ensuing 23 years, cellphone use by physicians has becomes near ubiquitous with recent findings showing that 91% of physicians owned a smartphone and 88% used their mobile devices frequently in the … Continued
Risks of insecure texting in healthcare Many hospitals understand the limits of pagers in hindering communications. They see how pagers inhibit a robust communication system for the institution. As BYOD (bring your own device) increases in popularity, doctors are increasingly turning to texting as an easy way to communicate with one another and exchange patient information. … Continued
Studying the impediments to effective hospital workflow is at the top of the agenda for many hospital administrators’ lists. This is because inefficiencies are costly. One of the major contributors to these inefficiencies is insecure text messaging. In fact, over $11 billion is wasted each year due to the inefficiency of pagers and the lack … Continued
The threats posed by unencrypted pagers We recently had a chance to interview Adam Greene, a lawyer in Washington D.C. with the firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP. One of Adam’s most intriguing cases occurred in 2014 with a hospital client. This hospital’s doctors and staff used pagers to routinely communicate about a patient’s status or … Continued
HIMSS17 closed last Thursday with a final salvo from Shark Tank hosts Robert Herjavec and Kevin O’Leary. Their closing remarks were very much in line with the themes of the conference: Security – Need to improve security of hospital systems to prevent hacking Workflow – Ensure a true digitization of health care records and upgrade … Continued
Boston hospitals are known worldwide for the high quality of medical care they deliver to patients from Boston as well as those coming in for treatment from abroad. The following case study details the specific alerting and paging needs of the doctors in the internal medicine department at one of these hospitals. This hospital … Continued
We at OnPage received an interesting request for Sarah Carter a 5th year Ph.D. in the clinical psychology program at George Mason. Her focus of study is on PTSD, stress, suicide, military couples and social support. Given the importance of Sarah’s subject matter and the critical need for better mental health services in the Army, OnPage gave … Continued
SAGE NeuroHospitalist is a privately held California-based company that provides rural clinics with neurological services through telemedicine. SAGE currently employs 15 physicians and works with 30 hospitals in small towns in California, Arizona, and Nevada. They provide coverage to rural hospitals in their network 24/7, 365 days per year. Adopting our clinical communications app for … Continued
Without workflow in healthcare, data is just a bottleneck In the weeks leading up to HIMSS I have been trying to get a pulse on the themes that will be driving the conversation at the Conference. One of the themes I have heard discussed at length is the concept of improving workflow in healthcare. Workflow … Continued
