TigerConnect Surveys Confirm The Broken State of Communication In Healthcare

TigerConnect released its annual “State of Healthcare Communications” report, a survey of healthcare leaders and patients detailing the pervasive challenges in healthcare communications. The survey confirmed the fragmented state of communication in healthcare – with many organizations still heavily reliant on landline phones, fax machines, and pagers, and the adoption of modern communication technology often happening in silos.

Brad Brooks

“Adoption of modern communication solutions has occurred in every other industry but healthcare,” said Brad Brooks, chief executive officer and co-founder of TigerConnect. “Despite the fact that quality healthcare is vital to the well-being and functioning of a society, the shocking lack of communication innovation comes at a steep price, resulting in chronic delays, increased operational costs that are often passed down to the public, preventable medical errors, physician burnout, and in the worst cases, can even lead to death.”

In fact, industry research shows that communication inefficiencies cost a single 500-bed hospital more than $4 million annually (NCBI) and worst case, can lead to death, with communication breakdowns estimated to be a factor in 70% of medical error deaths (JMIR).

Our latest research sought to better understand the state of healthcare communication today and how technology solutions can foster better communication and collaboration in healthcare. Specifically, the survey found 90% of organizations are still using fax machines and 39% are still using pagers. Additionally, nearly 40% of healthcare professionals say that it is difficult to communicate with care team members, contributing to bottlenecks at various touchpoints when moving patients through the healthcare system.

Moreover, the majority of healthcare organizations – 52% – experience communication disconnects that impact patients daily or multiple times a week. It is also worth noting that non-clinical staff greatly underestimate the frequency of communication disconnects that impact patients. Clinical staff members were nearly three times more likely than non-clinical staff to say communication disconnects impact patients on a daily basis.

Survey findings include:

Communication in Healthcare is Broken:

Impacts of Broken Communication:

Healthcare Organizations Operate Inefficiently

Clinical and Non-Clinical Staff Are Not Aligned

Patients Are Taking Notice

The TigerConnect State of Healthcare Communications 2019 report offers detailed recommendations to address these issues and modernize healthcare communications. To download the full report, visit https://pages.tigerconnect.com/State-of-Healthcare-Comms-Report-LP.html.

Survey Methodology

To better understand healthcare organizations’ opinions on the state of healthcare communications, TigerConnect conducted an online survey from July 15 through 31, 2019 with nearly 200 respondents who work in the healthcare industry. Healthcare employees were surveyed from a wide range of roles including 28% clinical workers (nurses/doctors/ ancillary providers), 22% C-level participants, 19% IT professionals, 18% administrative staff, 11% operations, and 2% other.

Harris Poll Consumer Survey

In addition, to better understand patient preferences and expectations around communication, a survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of TigerConnect from August 26-28, 2019 among 2,014 U.S. adults ages 18 and older, of whom 870 have spent time in a hospital in the past two years because they or an immediate family member had been admitted and stayed at least one night. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables and subgroup sample sizes, please contact Alyssa Trenkamp at atrenkamp@tigerconnect.com.


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