Simple Communication Steps to Enhance Patient Awareness

by Holly Shoemaker

While healthcare changes are on the horizon, doctors and medical professionals still face challenges regarding the best ways to keep patients informed. Before deciding on the tool used to communicate information, physicians and medical professionals need to ensure they choose the most appropriate way of communicating with patients.

Simple Steps to Follow

• Make Information Available in Many Ways – Simply put, people learn in different ways. Some are auditory learners, others learn by reading, some are kinesthetic learners and others need a variety of approaches. Doctors should consider these methods when communicating with patients and understand how patients best process information. Verbally mentioning information is not always enough to truly communicate. Providing information in a written form, or along with a visual, reinforces points and helps patient remember information related to their own care or conditions of family members and friends.
• Jargon – While patients need access to healthcare information in multiple forms, verbal communication will remain a primary way to communicate with a doctor. Many medical terms may be out the realm of a lay person’s vocabulary. Doctors should ensure they tailor their speech and communicate in terms that reach all patients.
• A Word Is Not Always Enough – Do not always assume that a patient may take a medical professional at his/her word. Use of current research will reinforce suggestions and may serve as a way to open up further dialog, or make a patient feel they may ask questions to better process information.

Concluding Thoughts

By first ascertaining the ways patients take in information, doctors and medical professionals may then decide on the proper channels of communication. The technology itself only becomes effective after the medical community first learns how patients take in information to stay informed.

Clinton Health Matters Initiative Expands Telemedicine with Verizon's Help

by Holly Shoemaker

Former President Bill Clinton announced this week, the Clinton Health Matters Initiative, a partnership with General Electric (GE), Tenet Healthcare and Verizon Communications to promote healthy lifestyles and medical assistance to undeserved areas in the United States.

The Clinton Health Matters Initiative is designed to address “global health crises and the childhood obesity epidemic,” according to Clinton. It works by putting systems into place to support medical professionals and those in need of healthcare outreach.

Verizon provides the technology component. The company will support wireless networks and other technologies for patients. In particular, the company supports a technology that allows patients to take their vital signs at home and send them to their physicians. Doctors will also have the ability to assist patients with chronic diseases. Verizon has a system in place to notify doctors when patients suffering from a chronic disease need medical help. Rural areas will also receive needed connectivity to bring specialist expertise to them.

The foundation will start its work in California’s Coachella Valley and target forgotten desert communications and in greater Little Rock, Ark, which comes as no surprise. From there, the project will expand.

Concluding Thoughts 

The initiative is an extension of telemedicine. Without telemedicine, we would not be discussing how medical mobile apps, smartphones and tablets work together to change healthcare. These tools, along with video conferencing, allow underprivileged people and those without insurance access to specialists they would not have. The Clinton Health Matters Initiative supports the expansion of telemedicine and shows developers ways to keep expanding the field.

Physicians to Rely More on Mobile Apps and Medical Technologies in 2012

by Holly Shoemaker

This year, physicians and medical professionals will rely more on mobile medical apps. In November 2011, the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) published its survey results regarding smartphone, tablet and mobile app use in the medical community.

Numbers at a Glance

The study, based on replies from doctors, dentists, healthcare providers, administrators and 400 IT firms that specialize in healthcare IT indicate the following:

• Fifty percent of physicians use smartphones for work purposes.
• Thirty-eight percent of those surveyed physicians use medical apps daily. This figure is expected to increase by at least 12 percent in 2012.
• One-third of smartphone users rely on them to access Electronic Medical Record (EMR) or Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems.
• Twenty-five percent of healthcare providers use tablets for professional purposes. The survey results indicate that another 21 percent of healthcare providers expect to use tablets in 2012.
  
• Two-thirds of the respondents said improving mobile technologies is a priority in 2012.

Concluding Thoughts

The data supports my observations as medical practices and hospitals work to modernize their systems. These figures show that physicians and healthcare professionals are working on improving patient relations. Many doctors also spend more time out of the office. This makes mobile medical apps a necessity to meet the standards of patient care.