Improving Communication in Integrated Health Care Practices Part 2

Identifying where communication breakdowns happen.

Our last blog outlined the benefits of improving communication in integrated health care practices and understanding how patients prefer to communicate. The second step to improving communication within your practice is understanding where communication breakdowns happen.

Breakdowns are most likely to happen:

• During interdepartmental transfers/handoffs
• During transfers from primary to secondary care
• In high-acuity settings such as an emergency room
• During patient handovers at shift changes
• During information sharing across professional boundaries i.e., clinician to case manager
• Across multiple services sites
• And within the interface between EHR progress notes in primary and secondary care.

Ultimately, communication issues are most likely to arise when information changes hands or when patients need to start seeing a new physician. Understanding this can help health care practitioners narrow their focus to address where breakdowns are happening. Technology and proper data entry are key in solving clinic communication issues.

A mobile-friendly EHR that is accessible from any device can improve communication throughout the practice. AI-enabled functionality allows providers to dictate changes to notes and plans and have that data automatically entered to the correct place with no keyboard needed. Intelligent alerts can make follow up for tasks easy and intuitive. And communication amongst the entire team can drastically improve with real-time messaging.

To learn more about how HiMS can help you improve communication within your health care practice, visit hmsfirst.com.

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