Healthcare is in dire need of easy communication tools and smart devices that make information actionable at the point of care.

Savvy health systems, such as Geisinger, are already using secure communication to mobilize emergency teams, ensure the right physicians and nurses are aware of the status of critical lab results, help manage transitions of care and much more.

These innovations include Life Geisinger and Geisinger at Home, which are helping Geisinger better facilitate care for their high-risk patient population, lowering costs for patients and improving the overall quality of care.

"A best practice that we try to follow is to always have our approach to mobile device and communication strategies align with our larger institutional objectives," said Dr. Jordan Olson, division chief of clinical pathology informatics at Geisinger. "Providers having more secure, rapid and effective ways to communicate is one solid way we can do that."

Olson, who will address the topic Friday at HIMSS21 this week along with Dr. Jonathan Slotkin, associate chief medical informatics officer at Geisinger, said modern healthcare systems are highly matrixed organizations with many layers across the clinical and administrative environments.

"The clinical problems our patients have and the treatments they need are becoming more and more complex," he noted. "Oftentimes, the biggest challenge is quickly connecting the cross-system group of people needed to make both small and large treatment decisions the right way."

While previously that would have taken a dozen emails or six or more pages and phone calls, now secure collaboration tools allow them to make synchronous decisions quickly with all of the right stakeholders involved.

He explained that one of the best ways to correlate app usage with measurable outcomes is to assess a topic of interest both before and after you implement a new app or approach.

"The problem is that many times folks do not think to or aren't able to ask those questions before the new technology is implemented," Olson noted. "When that is not possible, the next best thing is usually to compare the area or group where one is implementing a new technology to a similar area or group that does not have the technology."

He noted a large issue that so many providers face is that most every healthcare system has a handful or a dozen or more improvement initiatives taking place at any one time.

"Attribution – which initiatives helped or not – becomes really hard in those environments," he said. "So, assessing metrics at baseline before implementation whenever possible has become that much more important."

Dr. Jordan Olson will share his insights on smart devices and their impact on care delivery at HIMSS21 in a session titled "Transforming Care Delivery With A Smart Device Communication Strategy." It's scheduled for Friday, Aug. 13, from 10:30-11:30 a.m. PT in Venetian Marco Polo 701.