Technological, economic and regulatory drivers are bringing about great change in the healthcare sector. There is plenty of scope for improvement in both the coordination of care and cost optimisation, and a hospital intranet could help to set your private hospital healthcare service up for success.
Knowledge sharing and organisational growth
With the emphasis on the accountability of healthcare organisations, much recent merger and acquisition activity is being seen in addition to traditional partnerships.
There is also an increase in the number of younger healthcare providers who are moving away from the NHS into private healthcare organisations where the pay is better, the jobs are more secure, and there is an opportunity for career advancement.
The use of intranet in health and community services has increased steadily over the past few years.
A hospital intranet can really improve communication to the expanding healthcare and management staff via blog posts, departmental or provider satellite sites, and employee on-boarding applications for new staff.
In times of economic uncertainty, it is critical to keep all your staff in the communications loop. The intranet can also be used to keep physicians in contact with the knowledge & resources they need, as well as providing them with a sense of belonging and identity within the organisation’s mission and world.
A forthcoming promotions and jobs board is a really good way of encouraging staff to advance themselves, especially if training courses are also publicised that could better equip candidates for success in their applications.
Reduction in hospital running costs
Much of the recent increase in hospital running costs is due to a lack of consistency in patient care, resulting in unnecessary readmissions. Poor workplace communication and a lack of ability to identify problem areas within the hospital are also to blame for this phenomenon and consequent rise in organization costs.
By providing healthcare staff and doctors with standard treatment protocols online that can be accessed via the intranet, increasing costs can be addressed. Standard treatment protocols can be presented in video, photographic or documentary form and can empower stakeholders in a more systematic way, meaning fewer errors will be made.
You can also incorporate online surveys and testing materials, as a means of measuring the comprehension of the basic protocols, and to encourage other employees to put forward ideas for service improvements. An opportunity to have a voice when it comes to work on the sharp end is a proven way of improving employee experience & making them feel valued.
A hospital intranet allows you to obtain feedback from employees using engaging intranet features, which can be used to drive cost-cutting initiatives by exchanging research. A procurement site can also be used to allow collaboration on important purchasing and administrative decisions.
Improve staff morale and satisfaction
One unfortunate side effect of doctors and nursing staff choosing to work at private healthcare facilities for stability and better remuneration is a deterioration in staff morale and job satisfaction.
This dissatisfaction can be countered effectively by investing in engagement between staff and the organisation. Newly qualified caregivers tend to have higher expectations around purpose and collaboration, needing transparency within their organisation.
Staff members who are fully engaged and who have bought in to your ethos and mission will promote you to others, attracting the best talent and reducing staff turnover rates.
You can use many tools on your hospital intranet to develop staff engagement and to build ongoing professional development. Team-building and community events can be publicised, photographs shared and achievements celebrated, all of which can help to build a really positive culture.
A lively intranet culture can also help to build and develop good communication between different departments, which in turn will lead to increased employee engagement.
Improved coordination of care teams
The effective use of your existing treatment and care teams can help to streamline patient flow and other in-house processes. However, facilitating these discussions, can often be problematic, and a good solution is therefore not always easy to find.
The use of a robust online information management system, including forms and automatic workflows can facilitate data capture, provide automated notifications around different departments, and gain staff approval to move forward.
You could also externalise your hospital intranet. This would allow controlled access to your department and physician sites, company news and online forums, all of which are necessary to improve the ability of your doctors and other healthcare staff to work together.
Results measurement
There are many benefits of implementing a hospital intranet including, cost reduction, improvement of collaboration, and boosting staff morale and satisfaction. However, many of these benefits can be undervalued if you are unable to measure the impact that your chosen initiatives have on your organisation.
You can increase the leverage that your hospital’s intranet can have on your staff and patients by utilising tools like statistics, analysis of adoption rates, surveys, and overall staff satisfaction to measure what you have achieved. Once these metrics are in place, you can use the results to devise future staff engagement campaigns and develop new initiatives for improvements in patient care.
A healthcare intranet example
Emergency Physicians of the Rockies (EPR) is a healthcare organization that needed an intranet solution to streamline and enhance communications across their emergency department sites.
It became clear to EPR that the current methods of internal communication were not working.
Paperwork moving back and forth via interoffice mailers as well as too many emails meant that important information just wasn’t getting the attention it needed.
Claromentis’ digital workplace and intranet solution was the ideal healthcare intranet for EPR to propel their internal communications forward.
Important departmental information is now posted, organised, and shared on the intranet, with mandatory read processes in place to ensure that staff acknowledge receipt of the information.
EPR have utilised Claromentis’ built-in e-learning software to design a variety of training programs for their staff, including mandatory Mass Casualty Incident drills and a physician sabbatical program designed to encourage wellness and avoid burnout.
Not only has our Intranet implementation improved internal communications for Physicians of the Rockies, but provided them the tools to drive training programs, and equip employees with helpful articles to manage workplace wellness and avoid burnout.
