Efficiency in healthcare, reimagined

Clinical organizations are clamoring to increase productivity and improve efficiency in healthcare. But these goals can sometimes come at the expense of employee health and morale. Asking employees to do more without giving them the tools they need to perform better, or worse, saddling them with administrative or technological burdens that inhibit efficient work, can quickly lead to frustration, stress, and burnout.

For healthcare professionals, burnout isn’t a new topic. The American Medical Association, which has been studying physician burnout for more than a decade, noted that many factors, including system inefficiencies, administrative burdens, and increased regulation and technology requirements, can contribute to feelings of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization — the hallmark signs of burnout.

Technology that’s difficult to use can contribute to a provider’s workload, and thus, their stress levels. However, advances in collaborative healthcare technology may make it easier to address some of these issues, improve efficiency in healthcare, and lead to better satisfaction at work.

Learn how a unified collaboration platform like Zoom Workplace could help your team:

Telehealth allows patients to access care when and where it’s most convenient for them, leading to higher levels of patient satisfaction. It can also help providers manage their schedules more efficiently. Routine visits, minor illnesses, and follow-up care can all be attended to virtually, enabling providers to have more availability for patients who require in-person appointments.

Top three factors of work improved by telehealth

Integrations are essential for streamlining workflows, making it easier for providers to complete telehealth appointments quickly and efficiently.

Zoom Workplace integrates with leading electronic health record (EHR) systems like Epic and Cerner. Providers can launch virtual visits directly from a patient’s EHR and document notes in their chart during the visit without switching between applications. Plus, patients can connect to their visit from the patient portal or through a link sent to their email, without the need for a separate app or Zoom account.

Hybrid work is a standard for many if not most organizations these days. And hybrid work can take many forms, especially for care providers whose roles require them to be on-site the majority of the time. Flexibility in how and where people attend meetings, access trainings, or communicate on a day-to-day basis can help providers and medical professionals save time and coordinate their schedules better.

No longer do they need to travel across town to another facility for a training, or walk across a large medical campus to an administrative meeting — they can choose other options that are more convenient for them, which might include tuning in remotely or watching a session recording. This allows staff members to be more efficient with their time, juggle their priorities more easily, and improve their work-life balance.

But it’s not enough to simply offer remote meetings. Organizations that embrace hybrid work must think about the employee experience and how to improve communication so everyone can participate equally.

Choose the right solution. For sessions that require active participation and camera-on interaction, use Zoom Meetings. For meetings with the primary purpose of relaying information to a large audience, use Zoom Webinars.

Remember, not every communication requires live video. Zoom Team Chat is great for quick questions, coordination between teams, and asynchronous communication, and Zoom Phone allows providers and staff to call colleagues and even patients on any device — not just on their desk phones.

Optimize the experience. When remote employees can’t see their colleagues well or hear the discussion, they can quickly tune out. Be intentional with how you set up the in-person meeting experience so everyone can engage. Intelligent Director, a feature of Zoom Rooms, uses AI to help provide the best views of everyone in the room, and microphone arrays allow everyone to be heard.

Enabling flexibility in where and how people work can help improve employees’ job satisfaction and provide a better work-life balance.

But one potential issue with working remotely is drawing the line between work and home life. When your home becomes your workplace, employees can quickly fall into the trap of working at all hours, leading to increased stress, dissatisfaction, and ultimately, burnout. Creating boundaries becomes essential for helping staff members turn work off so they can enjoy your personal time.

Set business hours. Have you ever had a phone call from work interrupt dinner time with your family? Zoom Phone allows you to set business hours for yourself and for your staff to establish better boundaries between work and home life. Outside of business hours, calls get routed straight to voicemail, a call queue, or to another person on duty.

Keep your personal number private. With a cloud-based phone system like Zoom Phone, you can take business calls through the Zoom mobile app or desktop client, even when you’re not in the office. And, you can use your business phone number for those calls, so your personal number stays private.

Effective communication between providers, administrators, and other staff members is essential for improving efficiencies in healthcare technology. A unified communication and collaboration platform like Zoom Workplace can help everyone in your organization stay informed and in touch, supporting a flexible work environment that promotes better time management and productivity.

At the same time, Zoom Workplace reduces some of the frustrations that can arise from more complex healthcare technology solutions. By streamlining processes like telehealth workflows and simplifying the experience so employees don’t need to switch between apps, healthcare organizations can reduce the technological burden on providers and administrators for greater efficiency and satisfaction.

Learn more about the benefits of bundling with Zoom Workplace.