Updox’s virtual care helps providers optimize their practice for a no-touch office environment.
Technology has played a large role in healthcare for a number of years. Prior to COVID, most health systems and practices leveraged an EHR and some type of tech to manage patient intake and patient reminders. Once the pandemic hit however, the use of telehealth skyrocketed, and according to our recent 2020 Virtual Care Report, over 80% of physicians found it important to their practice. What’s more, over 95% plan to offer virtual care in the future, and 76% of patients are interested in using telehealth going forward.
While video chat and telehealth will remain a critical part of providing care going forward, practicing healthcare in a post-COVID environment requires a full virtual care strategy that improves the patient experience both inside and outside the practice. A key part of this is developing a no-touch office environment. Optimizing your practice for a no-touch experience includes integrating solutions across the entire patient workflow that allow for greater efficiency, safety and convenience – all with the goal of maximizing patient engagement and simplifying the business of healthcare. Below are a few ways how.
Virtual Waiting Rooms
According to a recent report, unpleasant waiting rooms are a single-most cited reason patients wouldn’t return to a healthcare facility. In an era where convenience and safety are paramount, virtual waiting rooms are becoming important to creating a more pleasant experience for both telehealth and in-person visits. With contactless patient intake solutions, patients can check-in via their smartphone and be directed at the appropriate time straight from their car to the evaluation room – eliminating inefficiencies, unnecessary wait times, and the need to linger in crowded waiting rooms.
Electronic Forms
Speaking of the check-in process, paper forms are costly to print, slow to complete, may be illegible or incomplete and often lead to follow-up questions. They also require manual input from form to computer. The result: often inaccurate information and delayed processes. Electronic Forms are a critical next step to going paperless and optimizing your practice for virtual care. With online medical forms, providers can eliminate the risk of human error, safely enhance document availability and increase patient satisfaction with easily accessible online and mobile friendly, simple data entry options. Pharmacies can also leverage electronic forms to create touchless drive through flu shots or other vaccines.
Secure Text
Text messaging has become a vital communications tool for many in the U.S. In fact, 97% of Americans use text messaging. People are likely to not answer a phone call from a number they don’t know and this is true for your patients as well. Secure Texting reduces hours that staff may spend playing phone tag and enables them to interact with patients by engaging them where they are—on their phones.
Electronic Fax
The amount of communications that move through your busy healthcare office may be staggering. While the solutions above can lighten the load on your staff, manual faxing – which is still used in many practices – can take a toll. This outdated tech can create workflow challenges such as duplicate records and compromised patient safety, as data can end up missing or in the wrong place. HIPAA-Compliant eFax streamlines documents and alleviates the unnecessary back-and-forth with options to send, receive and edit documents from any location or device. It increases productivity and patient safety, and removes the expenses of physical hardware and paper.
Virtual Care Strategy
A full virtual care strategy goes beyond video chat and telehealth. It includes optimizing your practice for a no-touch office environment, leveraging paperless and contactless solutions to enable greater efficiency and patient satisfaction. Each of these individually can lead to incremental efficiencies, cost savings and other benefits – but by connecting the dots between them, you can truly tap into the power of virtual care.
Interested in learning more about how to optimize your practice for a no-touch experience? Click here to learn how our solutions work seamlessly together to create your touchless office environment or contact us for more info.
