Pagers Cost Hospitals $1.75 Million in Inefficient Communications

Inefficient communications during critical clinical workflows such as patient admissions, emergency response team coordination, and patient transfers costs the average U.S. hospital about $1.75 million annually, according to a new report from the Ponemon Institute.

The report finds that:

• A significant amount of time is wasted during these workflows due to the inefficiency of pagers and the lack of adoption of secure text messaging.
• The use of secure text messaging could reclaim more than half of this wasted time.

The Ponemon study highlight the pressing need to overcome inefficient communications  with more effective communications solutions for efficient communication and collaboration amongst providers is critical to the coordination and delivery of patient and allow patients to more quickly receive the care they require.

The survey examine more than 400 healthcare providers in the U.S. to identify areas of inefficient communications  in three specific clinical workflows:

1. Patient admissions
2. Coordinating emergency response teams
3. Patient transfers

Respondents agree that time is wasted primarily due to the inefficiency of pagers (mentioned by 52 percent of those surveyed ) followed by the inability to use text messaging (39 percent). Respondents mentioned that secure text messaging could increase productivity. There estimate was that it could help reclaim half the wasted time.

“Patient admissions and transfer times are often inefficient because of the use of pagers and other outdated technologies,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute.

Pagers – antiquated and costly technology

In summary, pagers and other antiquated technologies are no longer effective. Doctors and nurses want solutions that enable fast, efficient communications so they can improve productivity an patient care. Many believe that secure text messaging can greatly improve communications efficiency and let health care workers focus more on patients.

Pagers are still in wide use

In many health care institutions, inefficient communications  and paging is still the norm, even though it is both time consuming and error prone.

Secure Text Messaging via Smartphone

Secure text messaging, one of the features of the OnPage Secure Priority Messaging system, can alleviate these issues by offering pushing communications, alerts and notifications to smartphones and tablets, increasing patient satisfaction, and resulting in significant cost savings for health care organizations.