​Imagine a patient suddenly has to work with a multidisciplinary medical team. No medical background, but a growing list of referrals. It starts with one or two and very manageable, but before you know it the patient has to learn a lot about different specialities quickly. This happens all the time. It's an impossible situation especially when patients have family, work, and life competing for their attention. I know how this works because I found myself in this very role becoming a partner to the clinical team that wasn't on the team. What I learned is that requesting records preemptively, before needing them, helped connect clinicians using outside portals with clinicians in larger hospital networks using an electronic medical records (EMR) system that builds a more complete clinical summary. The record becomes more accurate. Clinicians are able to act quickly once a more complete patient history is revealed, and patients get the care and resources available across the team. This experience revealed something the system hasn't been designed to resolve; there is no way for clinicians to see the clinical history of the same patient being treated in another organization without access to their EMR. 

 

This is where an operation workflow should be set up to provide access and resources for clinicians that need external documentation to inform their clinical decisions. Often times providers are making sound clinical decisions, but they don't see the full picture of the multiple providers treating the same patient.  

 

The healthcare system has already released a major infrastructure upgrade when it went from print medical records to electronic medical records. It ushered in a new process for patients and clinicians to access patient records and a workflow to continue to document the patient care journey. It offered transparency, accountability, and equity in care across clinicians. More information makes it easier for clinicians to use their training to better diagnose, refer, and treat patients. In short, it's better planning for a complex system. In program management we are trained to see the whole program. The dependencies, risks, blockers, stakeholder management across disciplines, and how to keep everyone working towards a common goal. We are uniquely positioned to be collaborative with every department but still operate independently within our own system. 

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Hospital networks and clinics have the electronic medical records (EMR) system. A communication tool that offers many benefits to patients and clinicians, but was primarily designed for data management. Still an improvement on the existing system, but a phased upgrade to our larger healthcare system. However, there is a communication gap happening on the patient care journey and it is time for the next upgrade.  Once a patient leaves the hospitals, clinics, or organizations that use the EMR system any further care is invisible on the patient record. Patients have to individually request records per organization.

 

More than that, what happens when that information is needed for decision-making in a multi-network hospital system? What happens when multiple clinicians are treating the same patient but there is no clinical summary of it in the medical record? This means clinicians are not able to access evaluations, clinical notes, or patient history from external providers to review and determine the clinical rationale for more specialized care or access to additional resources. Patients are falling into the gap. 

 

Multidisciplinary teams are exceptional in what they are able to do as medicine continues to advance, but we need a workflow that is just as advanced. A new upgraded system that offers patients and clinicians access to the entire medical record. 

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By using the right communication strategy we can meet patients and clinicians in the right setting with the necessary access, resources, and achieve our goals in healthcare equity as we advance in medicine. This produces better patient outcomes and the statistical data will be there to support what so many patients already understand. Join me for further discussion on how a communication strategy can identify and prevent gaps in your organization. Let's keep this conversation going. 

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Healthcare systems and clinicians need better workflows to do their work. We need to upgrade the system to allow for specialists and external clinicians to communicate with primary teams.  

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Ready for a communication strategy that better serves patients and clinicians? Let's start the conversation.

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