Chris Pugliese
Jul 29 2022
Reading Time: 3 minutes
By: Chris Pugliese, Senior Product Manager, CitusHealth
Going paperless can save time for home-based care organizations, many of which spend hours manually entering patient data, slowly communicating via fax, and experiencing delays in care due to incomplete documentation. If the right digital platform can ease these challenges, why do so many organizations struggle adopting new technology?
In this blog, we explore the downsides of paper-based communication and why adopting technology is just as important as implementing it.
Paper-based communication is inefficient and unsecure.
When you think about the ways paper gets sent, it’s either fax or someone physically delivering it. With fax, anyone can walk by the paper tray and see sensitive patient information. Even if an electronic fax solution is in place, it’s likely that matching important documents to the right patient will require a person to review anything that arrives and assign to a patient.
With physical delivery, important paperwork goes through a manual chain of custody and may not end up exactly where it needs to go—potentially putting patient data at risk or delaying regulatory compliance. However, physically delivering paper-based communication is traditionally used to engage and maintain relationships with referral sources. The COVID-19 pandemic changed this dynamic, where non-essential human contact was reduced, especially in healthcare settings.
The resulting shift meant that out-of-hospital providers had to find new ways to demonstrate value to referral sources—notably how effectively they can coordinate transitions, as well as ongoing changes and updates.
The right communication tools are vital to maintain key relationships with referral sources and partner providers due to the risks to personal health information associated with faxes along with the operational changes brought on by COVID-19.
Data-driven, paperless workflows are the answer.
Barcoded electronic faxes only solve a small part of the friction caused by paper and many app-based solutions require portal logins for physicians—making them difficult to adopt. To get buy-in on a digital platform, it must be easy to implement, easy to use, and easy to work into the day-to-day workflow of any referral source. If it’s not, organizations will continue to see faxes being used as the main method of communication.
So how can you choose a digital platform that will be easily adopted by your referral partners? These are a few things to consider:
- It should be simple and easy to navigate
- It should not require multiple logins
- It should fit into existing processes
Bringing a solution to a referral source that can demonstrate these attributes will make the adoption discussions quick and easy.
At CitusHealth, we’re working to change how people interact in a way that meets everyone’s needs. Our goal is to break down barriers to bring all communication together in one place—one place to manage documentation, one place to schedule visits and deliveries, and one place to collaborate care.
Are you ready to go paperless in a way that can be easily adopted by your referral partners? Request a demo to experience how CitusHealth connects everyone in the care journey, making care more efficient and data more secure.
Schedule a demo today to learn more about how CitusHealth can help you achieve patient engagement success.
