Clearly the goal of the health care system is to provide the best patient care with the best results. Having said that, the long wait times experienced today are counterproductive to that objective. When you are ill or in pain you are in no condition to believe that “Good things come to him who waits.”
On the contrary, there is nothing more upsetting or exasperating than having to wait for treatment. Today too many patients endure long wait times for health services. Not only does this raise patient anxiety, it causes us all to question the state of our health care system. Unfortunately there isn’t only one cause for longer wait times and there definitely isn’t one simple answer for reducing them. Reducing wait times is going to require system-wide improvements.
Here are some of the causes contributing to longer wait times:
To reduce wait times, we need to consider important system wide improvements in our health care system. The following are some that have been tried successfully across Canada and the US.
In many areas of life, information is the key to success and this is no different in the providing of health care. From access to care and patient engagement, through the logistics and ultimately to the development of health care reform adoption of health IT is the critical first step.
Health Information Exchange (HIE) is the most rapidly advancing tool for secure access to and electronic exchange of complete health records. These complete records are no longer merely an option but rather an absolutely necessity. Today’s HIE is a must. It is revolutionizing how information is coordinated, how effective collaboration takes place between patient care teams. This much improved collaborative electronic exchange of health information not only reduces costs, duplication and errors in medical interventions but also provides benefits in the flow of patient care.
Through the use of an intelligent eRefferral solution health jurisdictions can profoundly leverage the value of the HIE by actively enabling complete referrals to the most appropriate downstream service provider(s) that can meet the patient’s unique clinical needs and preference – all in real time.
To learn more download:
The Healthcare Executive’s Guide to Accelerating the Value of Health Information Exchanges with Resource Matching and Intelligent eReferral.
Join our global community of innovative health leaders. Subscribe today to receive monthly updates from Strata Health Solutions.