Giving a Voice to Patient-Centric Care
As a healthcare provider, you work hard to promote patient-centric, connected care for your visitors. But what happens when they are discharged home or to a post-acute setting? What can you do to help them transition safely, continue healing and avoid preventable readmissions?
The effective delivery of care instructions represents a significant opportunity to improve patient engagement, recovery and outcomes. Instructions delivered during clinician rounding, inpatient discharge and home health visits contain critical information about medications, appointments and treatment regimens.
Importance of patient instructions
While in the hospital, patients can experience pain, discomfort and medication that inhibits their ability to absorb and retain complex instructions given at the bedside. A recent study of discharged patients showed that 40 percent of patients were unable to accurately describe the reason for their hospitalization, and 54 percent could not accurately recall instructions about their follow-up appointments.
Without the corresponding context of the provider’s verbal instructions, discharge paperwork filled with complex medical terminology can be overwhelming and may not relate specifically to the patient’s condition and treatment plan. Family members may be designated to provide follow-up care but can’t always be present at the time a clinician visits the hospital room, particularly now facing COVID-19 visitation restrictions. As a result, families often lack the knowledge and resources to effectively manage follow-up treatment.
Addressing the challenges of care instructions
Recordings of verbal instructions, along with the provider’s discharge summary and written instructions, give patients and caregivers information they need to more effectively adhere to guidelines for follow-up appointments, medication delivery, warning signs, and more. Recordings close gaps in the care process and offer the ability to replay and share conversations as often as needed from the comfort and convenience of home.
Vyne Medical’s voice recording solutions can help hospitals capture, clarify and share these instructions with patients and caregivers. Face-to-face and bedside tools record conversations through a small USB microphone attached to a tablet or workstation on wheels. Recordings are indexed to the medical record and exported as audio files to the provider’s portal for convenient at-home access.
Shared access for connected care
When caring for an aging parent or relative, many families struggle to accurately retain and communicate updates and instructions to others who need to access the information. This is especially true in the midst of the pandemic, when guidelines restrict the number of visitors who can accompany a patient in the hospital.
Keeping family members informed closes gaps in communication and maintains connection between everyone involved in the care process. A recent study from the University of Pittsburgh Medical center found that the chance of a 90-day readmission fell 25 percent when providers engaged caregivers in the discharge process.
Providing access to information through the patient portal helps improve engagement in the care process. Family members who live out of town or may not be present at the time instructions are given are better-informed and more capable of providing care post-discharge, supporting recovery and reducing the risk for readmission.
We would love to talk with you about how voice recording can support your ongoing focus on patient-centered, connected care. For more information about Vyne Medical’s® voice recording solutions, contact us to schedule a call with one of our healthcare solution experts today.