Patients are usually treated by multiple healthcare providers and visit more than one facility during any episode of illness.
Take the example of a middle-aged patient with knee pain who may present at a general practitioner or urgent care centre. They may initially be referred to a physiotherapist and have a plain X-ray and be offered a pharmacy prescription. Later, they may need an MRI, an orthopaedic appointment followed perhaps by surgery at the local hospital. This alone will involve many separate teams (nursing, anaesthetics, surgery, theatres, pharmacy). After discharge the patient may need rehabilitation from therapy teams.
Even in this straightforward, single-disease example the patient may see 20 or 30 practitioners in five or six different settings over the course of 3–6 months. For an elderly patient with many problems, these numbers could be ten times higher and continue for many years.
Each transition risks errors, and inefficiencies including medication mistakes, repeat tests, delays to diagnosis and treatment, hospital readmissions, patient confusion and dissatisfaction and, ultimately, to much higher costs.
The new tools
For many years, clinicians have relied on inadequate systems: public messaging apps, emails, phone calls, spreadsheets and often memory. More recently, however, clinically focused tools have started to emerge which can solve these problems by offering a central platform for communication and information sharing across all stages of care.
The key features of these tools typically include:
- Real-time messaging: quick communication between healthcare providers
- Task management: tracking important patient care activities
- Shared care plans: ensuring all team members agree on goals and treatments
- Referral management: formalising hand-offs between care teams
- Handover support: smoothing transitions between shifts within care settings
- Patient engagement: allowing patients and families participate in coordination
- Analytics: creating insights to improve care processes
Impact of clinical coordination tools
Using these coordination tools has shown promising results in clinical operations:
- Fewer medical errors: Better communication reduces mistakes and adverse events
- Improved continuity of care: Consistent, high-quality care across different settings
- Enhanced preventive care: Helps identify and address health issues earlier
- Reduced hospital readmissions: Better follow-up after discharge keeps patients healthier
- Increased patient satisfaction: Well-coordinated care improves overall experience
Such tools can also offer operational improvements:
- Time savings: Streamlined communication reduces time spent on administrative tasks
- Better resource use: Coordination reduces waste and unnecessary service duplication
- Improved workflows: Clear overviews help teams prioritise tasks effectively
- Data-driven decisions: Analytics guide improvements in clinical and organisational processes
Implementation and design
However, there are pitfalls to successful adoption and implantation of such solutions.
First of all, they must be better than the status quo. Phones, messaging apps and emails are familiar and easy to use. Good UX and UI within these new tools – including the ability to work while mobile – are hugely important to adoption.
Secondly, these tools need strong clinical champions. Adoption will likely come less easily if they are driven by non-clinical leaders.
They also need to be driven across organisations. Adoption by health systems, therefore, rather than by individual institutions will be necessary since – by their very design – these new tools will cross boundaries. User education and engagement will be key. The change management implications of this are significant.
Finally, they must be trustworthy and flexible. Integration with existing systems needs to be seamless, privacy and security must be robust. And the ability to tailor the tools to different users and use-cases within the patient journey will be important too.
Conclusion
Clinical coordination tools are the future of digital health.
Their advent will have the potential to radically transform healthcare by improving patient outcomes and increasing efficiency – and to do so rapidly.
It will be necessary for health systems – including government-led organisations – to commission and adopt such tools and to address the significant implementation challenges
If successfully adopted, the new clinical coordination tools will make healthcare better for everyone.
By DJ Hamblin-Brown, CEO of CAREFUL
Dr DJ Hamblin-Brown qualified as a doctor in the UK in 1996 and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (FRCEM). He is the CEO of CAREFUL, a clinical coordination app, and has extensive experience as an emergency physician and healthcare leader. He served as the vice president of medical affairs at United Family Healthcare in Beijing and was previously group medical director for Aspen Healthcare in the UK. DJ has worked in leadership advisory roles, promoting compassionate yet rigorous healthcare leadership, and is committed to improving healthcare systems globally.
