Flu season is quickly approaching, which suggests healthcare suppliers should ramp up their preparedness efforts. What can they do to make sure they’re prepared to satisfy the seasonal surge in demand?
Latest knowledge from the southern hemisphere, usually a forecast of what’s to return within the US, means that this 12 months’s flu season will probably be much like final 12 months. The CDC warns that whereas “we can’t predict what’s going to occur in the US this upcoming season, we all know that flu has the potential to trigger important sickness, hospitalizations and deaths.”
With tons of of 1000’s of individuals hospitalized annually, suppliers should discover methods to arrange for rising affected person volumes and handle the danger of an infection amongst sufferers and employees to maintain providers working easily. Making it as straightforward as doable for sufferers to e-book and attend vaccination appointments will likely be vital. Digital affected person entry would be the key to streamlining affected person care.
Utilizing digital instruments to arrange for flu season 2024-25
As providers face growing strain, digital and automatic instruments will help healthcare suppliers put together for flu season by easing employees burdens. Extra sufferers imply extra appointments to schedule, extra registration kinds to fill out and extra individuals in ready rooms.
Opening the digital entrance door helps handle excessive volumes by permitting sufferers to finish extra entry duties on-line and forestall bottlenecks. Listed here are three methods to implement to assist employees and sufferers by means of a difficult season:
1. Handle an infection danger with on-line self-scheduling
An internet affected person scheduling platform has two clear advantages – it relieves strain on employees throughout busy instances and offers suppliers management over affected person move. Fewer calls must be made by name heart brokers. No-shows are much less probably as a result of sufferers can e-book, reschedule and cancel appointments, and obtain automated reminders, which makes one of the best use of physicians’ time. On-line scheduling additionally performs an element in an infection management as suppliers can incorporate screening protocols to determine sufferers with signs of COVID-19 or flu, and handle their onward care pathway appropriately.
Empowering customers to take management of their healthcare with a affected person scheduling system may encourage vaccine registrations, which might assist scale back the burden on well being serviceswhen staffing shortages stay stubbornly excessive.
What’s extra, sufferers now count on the pliability and comfort of scheduling appointments at a time and place that fits them. Experian Well being’s 2024 State of Affected person Entry surveyfound that six in ten sufferers need extra digital instruments to handle their healthcare. This means a rising demand for simple, easy and clear processes.
Watch the webinar: See how IU Well being used self-scheduling to handle growing affected person volumes with much less employees – and acquire insights on utilizing digital scheduling to scale operations past flu season.
2. Provide cell registration to handle demand
Ought to affected person volumes enhance, affected person entry employees will likely be underneath much more strain than traditional. Something that may scale back the executive burden will likely be a win. Experian Well being’s Registration Accelerator permits sufferers to finish consumption kinds and insurance coverage checks by means of their cell gadgets earlier than stepping by means of the door. Their particulars may be pre-filled robotically, lowering the danger of error. This creates a faster, extra environment friendly affected person registration expertise that minimizes points for workers to resolve.
Cell-enabled registration can also be much more interesting for sufferers, who’d reasonably full registration from the consolation of residence than sit in a ready room filling out prolonged kinds. Plus, it reduces in-person interactions, thus minimizing publicity to an infection amongst employees and sufferers.
Provided that 89% of sufferers say digital or paperless pre-registration is necessary to them, suppliers that provide on-line affected person consumption options can have a transparent benefit in attracting potential new clients throughout instances of excessive demand.
In apply: See how West Tennessee Healthcare changed clipboards with clicks with Registration Accelerator.
3. Cut back no-shows and enhance engagement with automated affected person outreach
Suppliers should talk proactively with sufferers to maintain them within the loop because the scenario evolves. With an open fee of 98%, textual content messages are a direct and handy approach to talk rapidly with sufferers.
Automated affected person outreach can enhance vaccination charges by notifying sufferers about flu shot availability and providing a direct hyperlink to schedule an appointment. Automated reminders scale back no-show charges and assist guarantee no slot goes unused as affected person volumes enhance. Messages can even embrace tailor-made directions for particular at-risk teams to emphasise the significance of well timed vaccination and supply instructions.
This method helps handle affected person move, enhance affected person satisfaction and guarantee suppliers are ready for the seasonal surge.
Contact Experian Well being immediately to learn the way digital affected person entry options will help healthcare suppliers put together for flu season in 2024.
