The healthcare sector is undergoing tremendous change these days due to regulatory, economic, and technological reasons as discussed in the Front Line of Healthcare 2015 Bain Report, which we will be referencing throughout this post. The healthcare industry is ripe for improvements in cost optimization and better coordination of care for several reasons. The primary reasons identified in the Bain Report are shifting revenue models (quality of care vs. quantity), an aging Boomer population, mobile healthcare apps, and electronic record management for patients.
So, how can a hospital intranet help you manage these changes and lead your business to innovate and take advantage? From facilitating knowledge sharing to reducing costs, these 5 benefits of a hospital intranet will set you and your healthcare organization up for success.
The top 5 reasons for using a hospital intranet
1. Facilitate organizational growth and knowledge sharing
With the push towards accountable care organizations, we see a lot of merger and acquisition activity as well as partnerships. In addition to this activity, the Bain Report documented an increase of younger healthcare providers moving towards larger management-led organizations for stability, better pay, and the opportunity to advance.
A hospital intranet can improve communication to the expanding management and healthcare staff through executive blog posts, departmental or provider sub-sites, centralized Policy Management, and employee onboarding applications. It’s critical through uncertain times to keep your team in the loop and connect physicians to the resources they need, giving them a sense of identity and belonging within the overall organization’s vision and mission.
2. Reduce hospital costs
Close to 20% of spending in the US is on healthcare, with the World Health Organization 2015 Report forecasting it will only be increasing as the years go on. This knowledge is simply staggering. A lot of these increases are due to the lack of consistency in care, unnecessary readmission, poor staff coordination, and difficulty identifying problem areas within the hospital or healthcare organization.
To counteract the increase in costs, you can empower the physicians and staff to work systematically, giving them standard treatment protocols online. Protocols can be displayed in a variety of formats, from documents and videos to photos. These online protocols come with the benefit of adding testing materials (online surveys and exams) to measure comprehension. Getting a handle on cost-cutting initiatives can go both ways. A hospital intranet allows you to tap into your employees and get feedback using engaging intranet features to exchange ideas or provide a procurement site to collaborate between parties on purchasing decisions.
3. Boost caregiver satisfaction and morale
While more physicians choose to work at management-led organizations for stability, it’s difficult to ignore the decrease in physician satisfaction and morale by a whopping 13% when physicians go this route, according to the Bain Report. To counteract this effect, studies have shown that when an organization invests in alignment and engagement between staff, there is an increase in satisfaction. Also, an increase in systematization can garner that highly desired morale booster. The report states that upcoming generations of caregivers have higher expectations around collaboration and purpose and expect transparency in their organization. You want staff that so profoundly believe in what they’re doing they will promote you, attract high-level talent, and lower staff turnover rates.
You can make use of multiple tools in your hospital intranet to build ongoing professional development programs, highlight team building or community events, share photos, and promote peer recognition to build your positive culture. Engaging hospital intranet applications can encourage communication between different departments and lead to an increase in collaboration.
4. Better coordinated care teams
According to the Bain Report, the use of treatment teams and care coordination has doubled in the past two years. As groups come together to streamline patient flow and other processes, it’s often difficult to find suitable solutions to facilitate these discussions. A robust online information management system that includes Online Forms and Automated Workflows, such as a hospital intranet platform, can allow you to capture information, automate notifications to necessary departments or staff, and get their approval to move forward.
Tip: It’s also possible to externalize your hospital intranet to allow controlled access to physicians or Department Sites, documents, Company News, or Online Forms that are needed to improve the ability for healthcare staff to work together.
5. Get measured results
Facilitating knowledge sharing, reducing costs, boosting physician satisfaction, and improving coordination between healthcare employees are some of the many benefits that implementing a hospital intranet can offer to your organization. That being said, without the ability to measure the impact these initiatives have on your healthcare organization, the efforts may not reach their full potential.
Although it’s clear that your hospital can leverage an intranet to address critical issues you are experiencing in today’s ever-changing market, the extent to which an intranet can improve your information and management system relies heavily on tracking and measuring results. Using your hospital intranet, you can utilize tools such as; surveys, statistics, analysis of adoption rates, and overall satisfaction to ensure you’re getting the results your healthcare organization is looking for.
Benefits of a hospital intranet—see for yourself
Operating in a highly regulated industry requires clear organization and consistent communications. With IC’s hospital intranet, you can easily store and share critical information and ultimately improve patient care. Here’s what our customers have had to say about our hospital intranet:
“IC has been the perfect healthcare intranet solution for Pathways Hospice. We not only educate our staff through our intranet, but also keep them connected while they are out interfacing with patients and caretakers. As a happy customer with IC for over 8 years, we have experienced how their robust intranet can flex and grow with our organization’s needs.”
CARI JONES
Pathways Hospice
Interested in learning more about our intranet software? Call our product specialists today! If you’re not quite ready for a demo, you’re invited to learn more by downloading our free Top 10 Things in an Intranet eBook.
