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Work From Home: Trend or Transition?

Over the past year, we have seen healthcare systems pivot in many ways, one of which was sending portions of their employee populations to work from home where possible. While some healthcare systems had already taken advantage of a remote program, the pandemic accelerated the need for hospitals around the country to equip for virtual workforce. As we look beyond 2020 and COVID-19, the question is, is work from home a temporary trend or will we see more hospitals transition in the years to come?

Earlier this year, Becker’s Health IT asked eight CIOs to predict how the healthcare industry would be different in the coming year. Two of those CIOs predicted the continuation of a stay-at-home workforce with benefits ranging from decreases in office expenses to increases in employee satisfaction.

Here is a look at what they had to say.

Lee Carmen, CIO of the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital (Iowa City): A year from now I expect health IT will be focusing significant resources on improving support services for a remote workforce that isn’t returning to on-premise work activity post-pandemic. These efforts will be trying to use technology to improve communication and collaboration among a geographically dispersed workforce, while also building and supporting organizational culture. Similarly on the care delivery side, health IT will be advancing technology and services to continue the growth of telemedicine, expanding the use of technology to reach patients in their home and enhancing the ability to collect data regarding the conditions in which people live and work that might impact their clinical care.

Ellen Swoger, CIO Applications in the Department of Information Systems at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (Jackson): Based on what’s happened this year, I believe there will be an increase in the number of IT staff that will be permanently working from home or remote settings. This will allow health organizations to reduce space requirements and thus expenses for health IT. This new work ecosystem will require newer or more robust project management and communication tools, or better use of the existing tools. We in health IT will need better ways to motivate and manage remote staff.

The good news is, sending healthcare workers home to work does not have to be a management, security or technology nightmare. Vyne Medical and our Trace® platform provides an integrated suite of voice, fax, and image solutions that users can access virtually anywhere, allowing hospitals to sustain continuity of care regardless of the location of their employees. Over the last few years, several hospital and health system clients have successfully used Trace to empower their teams to work remotely.

Take a look at what Moffitt Cancer Center was able to accomplish with 95% of their patient access workforce operating from home.

While 2020 has been a different and challenging year, we are hopeful that it has taught us valuable lessons that will have lasting impacts. Empowering non-patient facing staff to work remotely appears to be the future, and we are here to help you make it a reality.

Want to learn more about our work-from-home solutions? Contact us to schedule a call with one of our Vyne Medical healthcare solution experts today.

 

 

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