By Rebekah Murphy
Digital Patient Intake (DPI) solutions have become an essential part of hospitals’ strategies to improve revenue and patient and staff satisfaction. They also help improve operational efficiency and reduce staff burden, two major challenges for hospitals today. In order to reap the full benefits of DPI solutions, however, hospitals must first have staff buy-in and engagement. To learn more about what hospital leaders can do to gain staff support, I’ve asked multiple experts, whose DPI solutions were selected to join our marketplace, for their advice.
#1: Focus on the benefits
“We’ve seen great success when staff and providers are introduced to new processes as early as possible. One approach is to give an overview of the benefits to their workday. Highlight the new flow and how this transforms patient experience at every potential touchpoint. When staff understand the amount of time it gives back to them and the relief they’ll gain, they get excited.”
Brian Stone, Chief Strategy Officer, Clearwave
#2: Involve staff in implementation
“We find it helpful for the staff to be part of creating their existing workflow diagrams. This information shows the staff how many manual steps they move through with every patient interaction and allows our team to create the templates and automations of those workflows. With or without integration, during training, the staff is able to move through real scenarios with their Rhinogram digital patient intake solution and witness how simple and smooth the flow is now. Rapid adoption from staff is easily achieved when they witness how little time they will have to spend “chasing” patients for paperwork, insurance cards, co-pays and follow up appointments now.”
Daryl Weldon, Vice President of Sales, Rhinogram
#3: Consider a “big bang” approach
“When a practice tests a new digital solution with only a few patients and staff members, those not participating often get an unclear message, and training doesn’t stick. If you treat Day 1 like you want Day 100 to go, there will be fewer service tickets down the line.”
Erin Zielinski, Sr. Director Client Services-Medical Groups, Epion (now a Kyruus company)
#4: Monitor the metrics
“Digital intake tools are easy to use and make things better right off the bat. But there should also be an ability for administrators to look at metrics and see where staff aren’t fully utilizing tools. Or not using them in the ways that deliver the best results. This overview makes it much clearer and pinpoints where adoption isn’t as sticky as it should be. And this can now be tackled by just taking a few minutes to work with staff individually to support their adoption. You don’t have to develop all new training programs and pull people away from their jobs again and again. You can introduce great-performing new tools, and then apply a tiny drop of function review to keep things running smoothly.”
Brian Stone, Chief Strategy Officer, Clearwave
Panda’s Take
In surveying 100 hospital and health system executives for our recent report, we found that 83% of respondents anticipated that digital health technology adoption will increase over the next three years. That means more hospitals will face the challenge of effectively integrating new solutions. By implementing the right processes to engage staff and ease adoption of tools such as the DPI options found on our marketplace, hospitals can ensure they are on the right path to receive the full benefits.
