With COVID-19 seemingly behind us, it is time to start reckoning with all of the weaknesses in healthcare infrastructure that were made clear because of it. One weakness that has hit practice hard is communication. According to the HIMSS 2022 State of Healthcare Report, patients are moving away from “Traditional Types of Care”. Nearly a third of Gen Z and Millennials have visited retail clinics, such as Walgreens or CVS, in the past 12 months. The reason? Patients are done with disjointed care.

Delays and poor communication from traditional healthcare providers have pushed patients towards using these retail services. With providers still battling staffing shortages and burnout, its difficult to see these issues being resolved any time soon.
However, there might still be ways to overcome these communication challenges by applying technology. Here are 3 ways to do so.

1. Streamlined call schedule management
   Sticky notes, fax machines and spreadsheets have all been faithful servants for maintaining schedules, but their time is past. These methods are all error-prone and create schedules that quickly become outdated.
   healthcare communication solutions / healthcare communication now offer built-in call schedule management, allowing the practice to easily create and update a single schedule that can be easily accessed by all staff members. With a real-time schedule available, your practice will save a great deal of confusion and hassle.

2. Smart routing
   Communication is of no use if the intended recipient never ends up seeing it. The reasons for this could be many – the answering service might leave a message for the wrong doctor, perhaps the patient record is missing an important message due to the system lacking notification capabilities – but the end result remains the same.
   Regardless of the reason behind the mix up in communication, there are technologies out there that can ensure all communications in your practice are automatically routed to the right person, accounting for provider schedules, contact preferences and other rules. With this technology in place no messages will be missed and providers have the ability to control when and how they reach their recipient.

3. Multichannel communication
   Healthcare is, unfortunately, often slow on the uptake with widely available commercial technologies that have already begun to benefit businesses in other industries. Airlines and other industries that deal directly with customers have already switched to multichannel communications, allowing them to engage with patients in a more timely and reliable manner over phone, text message, email or video call. Healthcare could benefit greatly from this technology, combining it with the two mentioned previously to ensure all patient communications are routed directly and quickly to the relevant provider so that any necessary actions may be taken.