This is the time of year we all start making resolutions and predictions for the new year ahead. One of my fellow executives here at Microsoft asked me to respond to the following question: “If I could recommend 3 actions for health organizations to undertake in 2016, what would they be, and why?” Of course it is hard to come up with a list of just three things to do. Anyone who works in healthcare knows that the list is much longer than just three things. But, I thought I would share three things that are top of mind for me.
This is the time of year we all start making resolutions and predictions for the new year ahead. One of my fellow executives here at Microsoft asked me to respond to the following question: “If I could recommend 3 actions for health organizations to undertake in 2016, what would they be, and why?” Of course it is hard to come up with a list of just three things to do. Anyone who works in healthcare knows that the list is much longer than just three things. But, I thought I would share three things that are top of mind for me.
1. Put as much emphasis on improving and modernizing communication and collaboration in clinical workflow as you have on the electronic health record. Healthcare is all about communication and collaboration. Most medical errors happen when communication breaks down. Yet, compared to other industries, healthcare lags behind in the use of contemporary mobile solutions to address communication and collaboration needs. There are amazing solutions available today that are widely used in other industries to manage synchronous and asynchronous communication using text, voice, video, and web conferencing technologies across all devices. There are even cloud-based solutions to help migrate your old PBX infrastructure to a cloud services model. No more excuses. It’s time to get modern.