ACS Letter To JTECH

The Joint Commission has been accrediting hospitals for over 60 years, a time period in which much has changed in medical procedures and facility equipment. Medical facilities are also bound by HIPAA regulations, for which JTECH’s paging solutions are helpful in ensuring compliance. With the intent of improving services, integration of a JTECH wireless paging system creates a peaceful, therapeutic environment to encourage patient healing. Benefits of being accredited by the Joint Commission also include increased community confidence in the quality of care being provided. MediPass pagers assist in improving community confidence by exuding competence and a continued investment in technology and patient services. Staff retention, development, and recruitment are also enhanced by having efficient patient pagers in use.

JTECH’s StaffComm™ microtransmitters make it easy to discreetly, yet instantly, relay a message to a specific person or a specific group of staff members. In addition, with the ability to preprogram specific commonly used messages, the time required to send a message is reduced to but a moment to simply press a button. JTECH’s communication systems are efficiency-focused and easy to use. StaffComm devises allow interdependent departments to clearly express patient and staff needs immediately. For example, maintenance is often needed by every department and often in specific locations at some point, and often when they are, it’s an emergency of sorts where immediacy is paramount. StaffComm microtransmitters result in maintenance staff always being directed to the right location immediately when required. The same can be said about administration. Typically, the situation warrants immediate attention, which is why StaffComm is ideal for bringing together nursing and management. While patients will not likely be aware that silent pagers are even in use given the discreet nature of the devices, they will feel the difference of increased patient care and attentiveness to needs.

Communication is only as valuable as what someone can do with the information. That’s why it’s imperative that communication be direct, detailed, and actionable. All of the above are achievable with a JTECH SmartAlert doctor paging system. Whether needing to communicate about an exam room that requires preparation or about a patient requiring special assistance to their car, StaffComm puts the right people at your fingertips. By working within and across departments, your healthcare facility is better positioned to provide top-notch medical care. And of course, StaffComm is a HIPAA compliant wireless messaging solution, so your patients’ rights and privacy are always protected.

Being at a hospital and having unknown fear associated with undergoing a medical procedure can be a very stressful event. However, JTECH’s MediPass™ pagers allow you to reach patients and their families in a discreet manner, thereby adding a level of serenity to the waiting room experience. Not only have you reduced the need for overhead paging, but you have also increased privacy standards and given your waiting guests the freedom to wonder to other areas of the hospital or medical center. Holistic medicine also places a high level of importance on the patient-practitioner relationship. By utilizing MediPass pagers you are essentially saying to your patients that they matter to you – that you care about their wellbeing, that you care about their level of comfort, and that they are more than an insurance payment. You are truly placing the patient at the center of your organization and treating them as individuals, not just as people with diseases or medical needs. Because holistic medicine is, by definition, about the whole person, it only makes sense that you would want to best accommodate the whole person, including their time spent waiting at your medical facility. Whether in the waiting room or waiting for test results, MediPass pagers are a highly effective way to soften the waiting environment and take the first step towards holistic health.

At the end of the day the goal is always to provide the highest level of patient care possible. That is exactly what TITAN provides to hospital management, normalizing and streamlining communications to allow the best possible patient care. Improving patient queue management can be improved throughout the facility: in the lab, in the pharmacy, in the outpatient surgery department, in the admitting department and in the emergency room. But to accomplish this, it often takes standing back and looking at the overall picture, which is where TITAN can make its biggest impact. Hospitals aren’t a place where typical things should be overlooked, and the communication system is no exception.

Meanwhile, MediPass pagers also increase patient satisfaction by improving the overall waiting experience. “Customer service” is not just a buzzword for the retail industry, but rather it is a very large component of a hospital’s success as well. This is especially true in areas where patients have options as to which hospital to seek services. Some areas are so small that there is only one hospital within reasonable distance, but many places are serviced by multiple hospitals, all of which are vying for patients. How a hospital represents itself to the patients will also impact if doctors continue to refer their patients there. Having a reputation of good service and attentiveness to patient needs goes a long way. Improve the community standing of your hospital by eliminating or reducing overhead paging and replacing it with a discreet paging system. The healthcare industry will be forever changing, as will the communication needs within such an industry.

MediPass pagers have the added benefit of protecting patient privacy. Quite frankly, some people would rather not announce to the world that they are undergoing a particular procedure. Pagers alleviate the need to call aloud patient names. As far as the medical office is concerned, that is ideal due to the importance of remaining HIPAA compliant. There are endless rules and regulations within the HIPAA Privacy Rule regarding confidentiality, but also it comes down to respecting and protecting someone’s identity. JTECH’s wireless messaging solutions provide benefits both internally to the medical staff and externally to the patients and families.

One patient’s experience went like this, “A few months ago I sat in an emergency department’s waiting room, afraid of what was going on behind the large, locked double doors. There was a TV on—blaring—and turned in such a way that almost no one could see the screen. The chair was cold, hard plastic. Minutes felt like hours. There was no pot of coffee, nothing to look at, nothing to read except an issue of Arizona Highways that was about 10 years old. The place didn’t inspire confidence or help me relax. I couldn’t even take a walk, because I was afraid the staff would want me, and I would not hear their call.” While JTECH pagers would not be able to fix the décor complaints this patient had, they would have allowed the patient to “take a walk” and get out of the uncomfortable waiting room. MediPass pagers are a multifaceted investment for any hospital.

While some reformers believe the best way to deliver affordable quality care is through organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, which coordinate physician and hospital services under one roof and are paid not on the basis of how many procedures they do but on the quality of the care they provide. These organizations tend to rely on salaried doctors, make extensive use of electronic medical records and evidence-based “best practices” and, in effect, take on much of the risk traditionally borne by insurers. The dilemma is that he only way for the health-care industry to move toward accountable care is to further accelerate a process of consolidation that has already reduced competition and increased market power. Hospitals are once again busily buying up physician practices and outside laboratories that used to compete with them, incorporating them into their “systems.” Sometimes simplification and efficiency is the smarter way to go. JTECH’s pagers and wireless solutions are both easy to use and easy to integrate – quite the opposite of the current healthcare debate.