Introduction
$179,000. This is the average cost that large healthcare organizations bear to support hospital paging systems every year. Pagers have been widely used due to their perceived reliability and ability to reach out to clinicians remotely. However, with technology advancing at an unprecedented rate, pager use is declining by 11 percent yearly. This is because emerging technologies like secure text messaging apps have taken over, providing physicians and nurses with a more reliable, cost-effective, and time-saving alternative. If you’re a healthcare professional looking forward to switching to an alternative that is more convenient for you in all aspects, grab your cup of coffee and keep scrolling!
What Is A Hospital Paging System?
A hospital paging system, as you know, is used by healthcare professionals, right from physicians to nurses. Pagers became increasingly popular in the 1980s, not just among the general public; but also healthcare professionals and organizations. They replaced phone calls and made it easier to connect remotely.
However, in this day and age, nurse paging systems have seen a downward trend, all thanks to emerging technologies. Smartphones with built-in applications have made it way easier for healthcare professionals to connect among themselves and even communicate and engage with their patients seamlessly.
Issues With A Hospital Paging System
Here are some key issues that healthcare professionals face with healthcare paging systems:
HIPAA-compliance
Hospital paging systems are NOT HIPAA-compliant. It means that if hospitals host sensitive patient data, they need to have technical and physical safeguards in place to ensure authorized access and transfer of ePHI. Such compliance is not possible with healthcare paging systems. Hence, healthcare professionals are moving towards better alternatives to maintain compliance.
Cost
The per-device cost of a hospital paging system is around $10, whereas the per month cost of sending text messages per user is around $5. The stark difference in the price of secure texting apps and healthcare paging systems indicates a clear reason as to why you should shift from the latter to the former.
Physician burnout
As a healthcare professional, it must be exhausting and overwhelming for you to look after your patients, communicate and engage with them, manage your schedules, and coordinate with your team. With a healthcare paging system, you cannot manage all of that easily. You need a better alternative that not only streamlines but automates your workflows and saves you from all that unnecessary stress.
Issues with secure messaging
Hospital paging systems are not a secure means for communicating sensitive PHI. This is where secure messaging apps shine. With a secure texting app like Emitrr, you can share sensitive information with your patients and communicate with them over a secure platform that is free from any interception.
What Benefits Do You Derive When You Switch From A Hospital Paging System To A Texting App?
Text messaging apps are the superior choice for all healthcare professionals who have made a switch from hospital paging systems. If you are still dependent on a healthcare paging system but are desperately looking for a better alternative, then text messaging apps are the best alternative for you. Here’s why:
- Your response times get reduced by around 80-90 percent
- Flexible scheduling minimizes physician burnout
- The provision and coordination of medical care become consistent
- There are fewer disruptions in clinical workflows
With a secure and HIPAA-compliant texting app, you can achieve all of the aforementioned goals.
A text messaging app like Emitrr is packed with capabilities that can help you reduce physician burnout, improve productivity and team collaboration, enhance communication with patients, and improve patient acquisition, satisfaction, and retention rates.
Emitrr: The Best Hospital Paging System Alternative For Your Practice
Here’s everything that you can do with Emitrr if you pivot from a hospital paging system:
Send messages securely
With Emitrr, you can easily and securely communicate with your patients. Right from sharing important patient information such as test results to answering important questions on the go; you can send messages in an encrypted manner. When you start a secure chat, the patient will receive the message as a link. When they click on that link, they will be redirected to a separate portal that only they can access because of 2FA.
Maintain HIPAA compliance
With Emitrr, you can be assured of maintaining HIPAA standards, and the three rules related to PHI – The Security Rule, The Privacy Rule, and The Breach Notification Rule. As a covered entity, you can ensure effective doctor-patient communication and be more connected at every step of the patient journey.
Schedule text messages
If you wish to send messages to your patients at a later time or date, you can do that easily with Emitrr’s text scheduling capability. Whether you need to schedule appointment reminders, confirmations, or review requests; you can do that easily. A hospital paging system, on the other hand, cannot offer you this level of convenience.
Automate communication
Another great capability that will help you save a lot of time, and will reduce manual work is automated text messages. Right from sending automated responses to your patients to some commonly asked questions to sending survey forms, payment links, and birthday messages; you can do it all!
Engage in two-way messaging
Patient engagement is crucial for you to grow your healthcare practice. This means that you need to communicate with them on a frequent basis, answer their concerns or queries, and even gather details in the case of an emergency. Not only will this enhance patient engagement and satisfaction but it will also help you build a strong reputation.
Send group texts and mass texts
Whether you need to send a text message in a close group or send a text message to multiple people at once; you can do the same with Emitrr. All you need to do is add your contacts, type your message, select whether you want it to be a group text or a mass text, and hit send!
Improve team collaboration
With Emitrr, you can assign conversations to your team members and even leave notes for their reference, with this, you can ensure that no conversation gets unattended and all patients can be easily catered to. This will also improve response times, reduce no-shows, and improve response times.
Integrate with EHR/EMR
Emitrr integrates with 1000+ practice management software and EHRs/EMRs. This will ensure that all your communications stay in one place and will further streamline your workflows.
Here’s what our customers have to say about us:
Source: Capterra
Frequently Asked Questions
Nowadays, hospitals have started to switch to texting apps owing to the functionalities that these apps entail. The ability to send messages securely, connect with team members and patients instantly, and reduce costs and physician burnout are among the most common reasons for healthcare organizations to ditch pagers and use texting apps instead.
Hospital paging systems are not HIPAA-compliant. This means that they do not meet the standards of sharing and protecting sensitive PHI. As a healthcare provider, it is your duty to protect sensitive PHI from any unauthorized access and implement the required safeguards to keep it secure. If you don’t keep the data secure, if you don’t safeguard sensitive patient information, you’re making that information subject to a data breach. To keep a safe distance from the penalties due to non-compliance, you need to enforce HIPAA texting.
Secure text messaging apps are a great alternative to hospital paging systems. Not only are hospital management systems HIPAA-compliant but also offer a variety of useful texting capabilities that will help you reduce no-shows, improve response times, and boost patient engagement.
A hospital paging system in healthcare became quite popular in the 1980s and its usage only grew as years passed. However, with a host of emerging technologies taking center stage, pagers have lost their charm. Healthcare professionals are now moving towards a better, more efficient, and more cost-effective alternative to healthcare paging systems. They are investing their time and money in texting apps that offer a variety of features and help enhance their productivity.
Texting apps have replaced the hospital paging system. This is because as compared to a hospital paging system; a texting app is way more versatile, less expensive, and quite convenient.
Conclusion
With enhanced message security, ample integrations, unmatched scheduling, and direct doctor-patient communication; the sky is the limit when you replace healthcare paging systems with texting apps. If you’re looking for a switch, make sure to check out how Emitrr aligns ideally with your use case. Book a demo here: https://emitrr.com/lp/book-a-time/ and transform patient communication and engagement like never before!
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