Nick Knowlton
Jun 23 2022
Reading Time: 4 minutes
By: Nick Knowlton, Vice President of Business Development, ResMed – SaaS
Clinical communication and collaboration, now generally referred to as CC&C, is used to define platforms that allow providers and clinicians to communicate securely in real time. While this phrase is becoming a hot topic across all of healthcare, it’s important to understand that CC&C is more than just a trendy acronym. It’s a critical component to maximizing outcomes, clinician and patient satisfaction, and efficiency, especially in home-based care.
CC&C is a relatively new phase in the evolution of healthcare technology, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic increasing the need for better communication workflows. Organizations that use this technology experience more positive patient outcomes, higher patient satisfaction, and increased staff retention. But why? Here we’ll explore what makes CC&C so crucial to achieving the next level of communication and collaboration.
CC&C platforms adopt interoperability.
Platforms should be able to receive information and export into other supporting applications with very little effort and with the ability to support HIPAA compliance. This avoids duplicate data entry and error, exchanges patient information seamlessly, provides immediate access to full patient histories, speeds up payroll processing, and streamlines refill requests.
CitusHealth is built on a modern tech stack, and leverages industry standard APIs. These include Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), and others. FHIR is a very modern specification that the majority of modern health systems can use to exchange patient data seamlessly between the systems.
CC&C platforms focus on the patient experience.
In our post-pandemic “new normal,” where consumers now expect instant communication and digital capabilities from every company they interact with, this same expectation is placed on healthcare. Patients and their families want to be engaged in real time, on their terms.
At CitusHealth, we have a different approach to patient engagement. Our goal is to support the entire care journey, make engagement as efficient and collaborative as possible, and give patients and family caregivers the consumer experience they expect from home-based care providers.
CC&C platforms optimize care transitions.
Clinical communication and collaboration tools should help reduce the need for phone and email, making care transitions faster and more efficient by capturing and processing patient data and forms without the barriers of manual communication methods.
In the CitusHealth Forms Center, forms can be sent to patients electronically, staff can capture information in the field, and insurance change forms can be sent in batches, for example. Phone calls and faxes that were once needed to gather data and forms can be significantly reduced, information can be collected accurately, and it’s all updated in real time.
CC&C platforms keep care teams connected.
Clinical staff should not have to dig through faxes, paper charts, and emails to find patient information. With CC&C, data is available in real time to provide updates and keep care teams connected throughout the care journey.
CitusHealth simplifies the coordination of care between field staff. With a patient group messaging feature, everyone on the care team can be kept up to date in real time. And since the chat is available in the Patient Activity Hub, those not involved in the original conversation can still access the chat history—ideal for when staff are covering for each other.
CC&C platforms integrate with scheduling solutions.
Scheduling in home-based care needs to be more than just setting up a time. It should facilitate ease of communication and help clinicians document timely. This helps the patient feel positive about their experience by being kept informed of their plan of care.
In the CitusHealth Scheduling Center, all scheduling changes and updates can be seen in real time by the entire team, reducing the need for phones calls to confirm visits with staff. Schedulers can assign a new nurse within the platform or the nurse on the original schedule can choose a specific staff member on their own to transfer and reassign the visit. Nurses can also reschedule visits with their patients as needed. Automated reminders are useful as well for checking in on patients.
When you look at the impact you can achieve with a CC&C platform, it is clear your organization can be more successful with patient and caregiver satisfaction, and both patient and organizational outcomes. Schedule a demo today to learn why CitusHealth is at the forefront of CC&C and how we can help your organization improve clinical communication and collaboration.
