28 Jul Digital Admissions – Next Step For Healthcare Facilities
Without a doubt, the Covid-19 pandemic has challenged our hospital and medical facilities, not only to provide safe and accessible care but also to find new ways to innovate. We have found better ways to complete tasks we didn’t even think of before, from expanding ICUs and re-mapping foot traffic, to autonomous sanitizing robots.
As much as we wish that Covid-19 never happened, hospitals showed us that we could find new solutions and “think differently” to persuade a greater good.
Convenient Digital Care As Patients Become Consumers
Changes are also happening with the way hospitals and healthcare facilities operate patient access, front desk, and admissions in general. Consumers have higher expectations and demand that our facilities are convenient, time-efficient, without long wait-times, and clunky scheduling or payment processes. According to GetApp pre-pandemic research, 31 percent of respondents would be more likely to choose a new service provider if that provider offered online booking options.
Digital Admissions: Goodbye Clipboards, Hello Automation (And Common Sense)
The patient’s experience begins in your front office the moment they arrive. Every patient has specific needs, and everyone expects your admissions staff to be friendly, understanding, and paying attention. Your front desk team is one of the unsung heroes of multi-tasking and keeping everyone happy. They are the first and last staff members patients see, and consequently, your team on the frontlines of keeping patients happy from scheduling appointments to collecting payment. Enter the pandemic and post-pandemic era with social distancing, face masks, and potentially contagious patients in a waiting room. Do you replace admissions staff with a robot with a single pre-programmed answer for every patient or keep the admissions staff at risk of your team’s safety? Is there a way to find a happy medium between the two? We think so.
Front Desk “Human” + AI = Digital Admission
Imagine a stressed patient with a broken arm with symptoms of Covid-19 arriving at your ER. On top of the broken arm, fever, cough, and enormous pain, this person also suffers from white coat syndrome.
Scenario 1:
Front desk “human” with a mountain of paperwork to fill. Filling out paperwork with a broken arm is not really an option, and on top of that, you might have exposed your “human” to Covid-19.
Scenario 2:
A robot who does not understand the mistyped questions and commands of the patient with a white coat syndrome.
Imagine Scenario 3:
Digital Admission, the best of both worlds. The patient gets to speak to an actual “human” who is on the computer screen attached to a robot that moves around the healthcare facility. Digital Admission can immediately see that the patient has to be escorted to the isolation ward and show the patient a safe way to get there and complete the admission in isolation. AI can access a patient’s EMRs and insurance information and complete an efficient and intuitive check-in process while a “human” evaluates the severity of the situation.
Lori Intravichit, CEO of Sunlit Cove Healthcare said:
Hospitals and healthcare facilities have to find new innovative ways to create a safe patient experience, complete the right intake tasks, and improve understanding of every patient's needs.
Sunlit Cove Healthcare Consultants can assist you with telehealth, digital and virtual setup, best practices, and the creation of policies and procedures to fit the specific needs in your practice. The future of telemedicine has arrived and we are here to provide a seamless transition! Contact us or give us a call at (727) 278-3009 to get started.
Sunlit Cove Healthcare Consultants
We provide management and consulting services to help healthcare businesses run efficiently. Navigating the dynamic and complex revenue cycle management is a challenge for many health plans, health care vendors, and providers. Our consulting services are available to assist with your day-to-day operations and provide expertise in growth and change management. We manage all aspects of your enterprise from the development of the revenue cycle management process to the completion of your business cycle.
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