Unified Communications: Healthcare's New Aid

Only a decade ago, Healthcare Information Technology (HIT) organizations were primarily concerned with the solutions that promised improved patient safety, workflow, and financial optimization. Communication technology was a second-tier focus. Paper based charting, which was prevalent then, kept information technology from having an impact on healthcare delivery improvements at the patient-doctor interface. In just 10 years, time has changed tremendously. Today, healthcare organizations are looking at applications; implementing them in a planned, cost-effective manner to improve healthcare delivery; employee productivity; and work-team collaboration. Hospitals in India are fast adopting various technological tools for the purpose of increasing their efficiency such as Electronic Medical Records (EMR), Picture Archival and Communications Systems (PACS), Radiology Information Systems (RIS), billing solutions, and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. Traditional telephone voice services have migrated from circuit based switches to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which enables more advanced Unified Communications (UC).

An IBEF report indicates that the healthcare spending in India itself is about $30 bn and is expected to go up to $80 bn in the next 10 years. By 2020, the Indian healthcare industry is estimated to be worth $275.6 bn. IT trends in India are picking up and it is estimated that $300 mn will be spent in the next 3-4 years on HIT in India.

Communication in Healthcare

Healthcare is a communication intensive business. Good communication has a profound effect on the quality of delivery in healthcare organizations. Communication also has a huge bearing on patient satisfaction. Yet historically, the options for how we communicate with each other in the healthcare industry have been somewhat limited. We are hampered by an industry that has far too long relied on old-fashioned telephone, paging, fax, and mail (both postal and interoffice); not exactly the most contemporary communication infrastructure.

UC Solves Healthcare Communication Challenges

Healthcare organizations are increasingly facing challenges-the ongoing pressures to improve operating margins while meeting the increasing demands for high-quality patient care. Implementing a UC framework can address these concerns by providing solutions that improve collaboration between the medical and administrative staff, enabling faster and better decision making.

Patient care and safety can be improved by more effective and accurate communication. Improved communication saves time and resources, which reflects as improved facility utilization. The effectiveness of communication at all levels-written, oral, and electronic-have the greatest impact on patient safety. The new UC technologies are secure and auditable and therefore support regulatory compliance requirements. Also, communication regarding patient-specific information can be restricted to those with authorized access, unlike the earlier voice telephony mode. These new UC options often reduce the amount of time spent in communication. The value is usually seen in the reduction of wasted staff-time, as well as cost-saving reconfigurations of communication systems. This technology will also have a profound effect on the way healthcare professionals conduct meetings and do trainings in the future, apart from facilitating easy communication regarding round presentation, staff training, patient education, and more.

By using UC services, one will no longer be restricted to the telephone for communicating with colleagues or patients. One can decide to use either a synchronous or asynchronous mode of communication. It almost eliminates the hassles of waiting on hold or playing a phone tag on the telephone. Office telephone, smartphone, pocket-PC, laptop, tablet-PC or desktop PC, etc, can be utilized whether its an instant message, email, voice, or video communication on a single platform. UC has great potential to help healthcare institutions save money and improve productivity; however UC alone is not enough. The challenge is implementing UC services so they result in role-enablement.

Roles in a hospital are highly specific and well defined. For example, a surgical nurse has a very different role than a neonatal nurse, and a radiology technicians role is distinct from a pharmacy technician. Not only are their roles different; their information and communication requirements can vary as well. This variance is the case for every role in a hospital-from doctor to billing clerk. When a life is on the line and a nurse needs to reach a doctor, the hospitals communication infrastructure should enable her to contact that doctor as rapidly, effortlessly, and efficiently as possible. Technology should serve people; people should not be asked to serve technology. Role-enabled communication takes into account the various roles individuals play in a healthcare organization. Role-enabled communication seamlessly provide for the information and communication needs that meet the work-process requirements of that role. The fact that more healthcare institutions than ever are moving to Electronic Medical Record (EMR), Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), and Radiology Information Systems (RIS) is important because these technologies optimize clinical workflow; however enabling interdisciplinary teams with a truly collaborative communication environment is equally important.

Today, the healthcare industry is clear in its move towards becoming a paperless and wireless system. Due to heightened focus on HIT advancement, healthcare institutes are now increasingly deploying more integrated solutions that combine clinical technology with unified communications solutions at increased levels. UC provides integrated mobile communications to reduce the device proliferation so prevalent in healthcare institutions today. It also provides a single number that can be used to contact each user, thereby eliminating the guesswork and wait times associated with using pagers and dialing multiple numbers.

Clinical mobility is crucial to overall healthcare delivery. Nurses, doctors, technicians, and therapists need access to current EMRs, wherever they interact with patients. It is one thing to put a computer on wheels, but quite another to expand the range of activities clinicians can use it for. When coupled with bedside voice services, integration of soft communications into COWS can dramatically increase their effectiveness and give nurses access to patients EMRs and additional vital patient data. Today, hospitals are gradually realizing the importance of device consolidation and expense reduction.

Increasing Adoption of UC with the Indian Healthcare Sector

Today, healthcare organizations are not only interested in learning more about these applications, but they also emphasize on implementing them in a planned, cost-effective manner, which help them in improving healthcare delivery, employee productivity, and work-team collaboration.

Hospitals in India are fast adopting various technological tools for the purpose of increasing their efficiency. UC in health care potentiates numerous breakthroughs in daily operation efficiencies. UC solutions integrate the right communication tools into the context of the user and task to minimize labor content, delays, and errors while supporting operational requirements.

While computers and networks have been used for some time in the healthcare settings, they are still often tied to a specific, physical location, requiring the presence of the clinician to be used. Communication among healthcare workers in different areas often takes place via fixed telephones because most hospital regulations prohibit the use of cell phones in many areas of the facility. For clinical professionals such as nurses and physicians-every moment they are tethered to a desktop computer or a fixed-wall phone is one moment they aren't spending at the bedside with their patients or on the move to their next task. Increased mobility for these professionals means increased productivity.

UC integrates various communication methods, including voice, instant messaging (IM)/presence, call center functionality, unified messaging (UM), collaboration and conferencing over both wired and wireless networks. The benefits of UC are amplified in those organizations in which the workers are highly mobile and communication between them is both critical and time sensitive. The highly collaborative and mobile nature of clinical teams makes UC an essential investment for healthcare organizations today.

Points to Consider while Deploying UC

• Before deploying unified communications, healthcare institutes must carefully plan and then implement accordingly. They should look at taking a phased approach while deploying UC.
• The departments or clinics where UC applications will do the most good should be identified and then power users need to be selected based on roles for usability testing.
• Before thinking about UC, institutes should examine all clinical processes thoroughly. They should involve department heads to outline and agree upon an approach to implementing UC.
• Gathering information about which roles and workflow processes in each department can be enhanced with UC must be taken into consideration. Before implementation, organizations should also examine the network and make sure it can handle the increased traffic.
• The UC solution is flexible and scalable. Also, be aware that some vendors have specific services and site surveys to test networks and report results. Consider integration and remote network monitoring service providers.
• Choose a single vendor with a proven track record of being able to integrate the necessary elements such as third-party applications.
• An organization should choose investment protection. Make certain the UC solution provides unquestioned investment protection and has a clearly defined, long-term product migration vision.

Controlling Expenditure, Optimizing Investment

At the time, when new age healthcare industry is continuously facing a constant push towards technology advancement to keep pace with the rapidly expanding demand on resources and the rising demand for quality patient care, UC trend has emerged as the next big thing enabling healthcare providers support for improved quality, enhanced patient care, and managing costs.

The time has arrived when healthcare organizations need to assess their communication systems in the context of new age patient care. In healthcare, where efficiency and disaster recovery are key concerns, this new breakthrough technology provides immediate benefits in both areas, for acute care facility.