From the time a patient is admitted to the hospital all the way to discharge, there are streams and streams of data involved in their care. In any given day, clinicians collaborate with each other, facilitate patient transfers, order and review lab and imaging, check medical references and so much more.

How many devices does it take to make that process come to life? Truth is, it’s hard to say. But what experts do know is that the digital payload of modern healthcare is becoming extreme—and considering the risks of clinician burnout, hospital staff are reaching a cognitive breaking point.

According to research in JAMA Internal Medicine, two-thirds of a physician’s day is spent outside of direct patient care. Most of that time involves tapping, clicking, typing or otherwise interacting with technologies, including electronic health records, clinical collaboration and other documentation.

In that time, clinicians will use a wide spectrum of devices, systems and applications—from mobile and in-house phones and pagers to medical reference apps, monitoring tools, laptops, tablets and more. Unchecked, devices can add up to be a lot more than the hands available to hold them, tantamount to what Mobile Heartbeat CEO Ron Remy has previously called the ”utility belt syndrome.”

Having so many devices involved in the acute care environment isn’t just a physical burden—it’s an outcomes burden, too. The amount of time it takes to log in and log out, toggle between apps or otherwise navigate the complexities of multiple tools can boggle the brain and seriously impact workflows, as well as patient care.

Of course, that’s not to say those digital interactions aren’t medically necessary. They often are. But what if there were a way to consolidate them into as few devices—and interruptions—as possible? That’s the ethos behind MH-CURE®.

How exactly can one clinical communication and collaboration (CC&C) tool do that? Consider, for example, if you could merge these multiple day-to-day processes not just into a single HIPAA-compliant device, but a single app, too:

Clinical Communication

The MH-CURE Platform negates the need for multiple pagers and phones to communicate with clinicians. With features like the Dynamic Care Team™, it’s always clear exactly who is assigned to each patient—and special additions like the Patient Pick enable all users to quickly search for, find and insert patient information into any given correspondence.

Plus, the ability to designate a Dynamic Role on the fly means that all calls and texts get forwarded to the on-call clinician in that role, straight from the MH-CURE app.

Operational Communication

For all the benefits of CC&C tools, they yield little value if you don’t involve everyone—yes, everyone—in the communication loop. Often, organizations might do the right thing in consolidating clinical communications into a single tool, but they fail to include non-clinical support staff from that tool, such as the admissions team, environmental services, transport, dieticians or pharmacists. And then, when clinical teams inevitably need to interact with non-clinical personnel, it requires—you guessed it—a separate app or device to connect these two siloed user groups.

MH-CURE breaks that convention head-on. Because we price our solution based on the number of registered beds (rather than users), it’s easier than ever to involve all staff members in the communication network. Doing so makes that network exponentially better.

Medical Referencing

Mobile Heartbeat continues to integrate with reference partners to build its InterApp Launch Point™ library so that users can access multiple resources directly from the MH-CURE app. With single sign-on available, no extra logins are needed to access these resources. That means that clinicians have reference materials at their fingertips, straight from the app’s home screen—without the need to fumble with the clinic laptop or tablet to find them.

For example, current InterApp Launch Points include two quick-reference resources from Lippincott—Advisor and Procedures—which dually provide clinicians diagnostic and procedural information whenever they need it. Administrators can also provide links to the hospital’s internal protocols on an intranet, or leverage MH-CURE’s integration with UpToDate make even more resources directly available through our app’s home screen.

Monitoring Tools

As another InterApp integration, MH-CURE’s interoperability with AirStrip ONE has contributed to a smarter synergy between monitoring machines and collaboration tools, and reduced the need for multiple devices along the way. For example, when a patient has an irregular reading, the system triggers an individualized alert through the MH-CURE app so that the responsible clinician sees it right then and there. Thereafter, the care team can continue to coordinate patient care directly from the MH-CURE app.

EHR Integrations

With integrations from Mobile Heartbeat’s roster of electronic health record (EHR) partners, clinicians can easily access basic patient information—such as name, bed, unit, health concerns, age, height and weight—directly from MH-CURE, without having to toggle between a separate computer screen and mobile phone to find and relay that information. The EHR is also linked in real-time with the patient’s journey, which means that as soon as the patient is discharged, their information will no longer pull from the EHR.

Emergency Protocol

Chances are, your organization’s emergency protocol documents are somewhere in a desk drawer—or, if they’re digital at all, filed in an obscure folder on a laptop. To stave off the confusion that can cause, many of our clients have created an InterApp Launch Point to those online documents so that they’re readily available straight from the MH-CURE home screen, without worrying about lost files or version control. That way, clinicians can access protocols in an emergency, without losing precious moments in the search or toggle between multiple devices, screens and folders to locate them.

One Device With Loads of Power

Indeed, shoring up multiple communication and data streams into as few devices as possible not only leads to a smarter, leaner communication strategy—but there are also tangible benefits to patient outcomes to consider, not to mention marked impacts on hospital noise levels and resulting ratings such as the HCAHPS scores (thanks to tighter, more efficient alarm control).

Consider: How many devices do your clinicians use to do their jobs daily? What opportunities do you have to optimize and consolidate? Imagine, for example, what your staff could do with fewer distractions, more patient facetime and a better, more effective use of their time overall. MH-CURE can help you get there.

When you’re ready to learn how you can tighten workflows, get in touch with Mobile Heartbeat. We’d love to help you shed the weight of unnecessary devices for good.