How Healthcare Organizations are Using Mass Notification Systems

Mass-Notification-SystemMass notification systems are becoming a primary means of communication for healthcare organizations. Mass notification systems can take healthcare organizations’ patient communications to the next level, with the positive effect of improved efficiencies, productivity, patient satisfaction, and even patient outcomes. Let’s look at how.

Appointment Reminders

I’m sure you have received a call or an email reminding you of a healthcare appointment. This has become common practice among healthcare organizations, and for good reason. Automated reminders can take a major administrative burden off of personnel who once had to physically call each patient to schedule, confirm, and remind them of appointments. Automated reminders immediately free up personnel time to maximize their productivity. They can also be customized to the organization, so patients still feel the personal touch they come to expect.

Surveys

Mass notification systems in healthcare are also being used to administer and evaluate patient surveys. This rich data provides insights into the patient experience and can reveal organizational issues that need to be addressed, which inform improvements that can ultimately affect patient outcomes and the organization’s profitability. Surveys delivered via a mass notification system not only help healthcare organizations maximize efficiencies, they also collect, organize, and convey pertinent data that decision makers can utilize to stay competitive.

Chronic Disease Management

With an aging population utilizing a large majority of healthcare services, healthcare organizations have the challenge of managing many chronic and comorbid diseases among elders. The delicate management of these diseases requires a lot of follow up and patient communication to determine if patients are maintaining compliance with their treatment plans, and if there are indicators that require changes to the course of treatment. Mass notification systems can assist healthcare organizations in this communication and data collection.

For example, mass notifications can:

  •      Proactively make a call with a recorded “wellness check”;
  •      Inquire if the patient needs a drug refill or new prescription;
  •      Prompt the patient that he/she is due for a follow up exam; and
  •      Remind patients to take medications or check vitals/blood sugar at a specific times.

Consolidation of Communication Services

With the expansion of possibilities in mass notification systems for healthcare organizations, some find themselves in a bind with multiple providers. For example, an organization may have first decided to use mass notification for appointment reminders only and sought a provider for that service alone. A few months later, it decided to expand mass notification to administering patient surveys, where it had to find another provider for that. In the end, this can lead to an organization with so many mass notification providers that managing them all becomes burdensome, defeating the purpose of achieving efficiencies with the mass notification system in the first place.

To avert this issue, it’s important to select a mass notification partner that can deliver an expansive list of notifications with its product offering. A quality provider, such as Surgent, can devise a plan to anticipate the organization’s mass notification needs to accommodate its growth over time.