Why Are There Still Issues With Patient Hand-Off
Ineffective
transitions of care have been a known problem for healthcare providers for a long time. It was once assumed that technology would quickly and finally solve the issue. However, despite a wide variety of different tools, the problem of poor patient hand-off has not gotten better. Why?
Common Causes of Patient Hand-Off Problems
In many ways technology has made heath care more complicated. There are now more diagnostic tools, more tests, and more data to analyze. While technology has created more opportunities to screen and treat patients, doctors and nurses have less time to spend with individual patients. Workloads have increased and the information health care workers are responsible has skyrocketed.
All of these factors have led to an increase in gaps during the patient hand-off process. These gaps in turn have led to
increased risks for patients such as:
- Medication errors
- Wrong-site surgery
- Lack of patient education
- Deaths
The Right Tool For the Job
There are a variety of different tools on the market designed to make the patient hand-of process smoother and reduce gaps in care. However, many of these tools are ineffective. All too often they only solve part of the problem.
Many tools fail to reduce gaps simply because they are never fully implemented. They are too cumbersome or time-intensive to use. The right tool needs to be intuitive and easily integrate into doctors and nurses regular practice.
The right tool doesn’t expect medical professionals to adapt to it. Instead the best tool would be designed from the ground-up to fit into the best practices that medical professionals currently use.
Imagining a Better Future
Imagine being able to check on a new patient on your desktop in your office. Then imagine you are going from appointment to appointment and you get to the new patient. You feel like you are forgetting a detail that you read earlier. Instead of messing with a chart, going back to your office, or just promising yourself you will check on it later, you pull out your mobile device and review the patient hand-off information right there.
Instead of missing something, you take part in a seamless medical transition.
This type of patient hand-off scenario is not a fantasy. It could be your reality. The revolutionary app Physician Sign Out is the only tool on the market that was created for practitioners by practitioners and that meets all of the criteria a tool needs to be effective.
You can easily reduce errors and improve patient outcomes, without wasting time.