How to Improve Patient Flow & Streamline Benefits

As hospitals work to meet new demands brought about by a rise in healthcare consumerism, they’re looking toward more patient-centric solutions for improving patient flow. Streamlined patient portals are at the top of the list.

Patient flow refers to the process in which patients move through a hospital or other healthcare setting. That’s why the effort to smooth patient flow through the use of a patient portal system is appealing to both patient and provider. Consider how the use of a more efficient, patient-centered resource could improve admission handoffs and the discharge process alone, not to mention appointment requests, prescription questions or refills.

How Providers Can Reduce Costs and Boost Patient Satisfaction

For providers, it's no longer enough to optimize patient flow to save money on staffing, improve safety, and reduce readmission rates. It’s also important to find solutions that boost patient satisfaction, which means cutting out any unnecessary processes or procedural steps, reducing delays to care, and enabling more direct communication between patients and physicians.

For example, if a patient is discharged from the hospital, but needs to schedule a follow-up appointment and get a prescription filled ,but no one walked them through the unnecessarily complex portal or scheduling system, the still-recovering patient could quickly become confused or frustrated, and the likelihood of them securing that recommended appointment and prescription significantly diminishes.

As a solution to helping ensure comprehensive care for patients after they see a doctor, patients needing a prescription filled can use the MEDHOST portal, or if they need a refill, they can use the YCE app and request their prescription directly from the pharmacy. They could also request a refill from a clinician via a secure message.

Patients seeking more control over their health increasingly demand simplicity—and will be turned off by a confusing portal platform. An easy-to-use interface that enables a seamless flow of communication and information between the patient and provider contributes to an improved patient experience, boosts retention, and keeps organizations competitive for the long term.

Patient Portal Benefits for Providers

WIth patient flow optimization in mind, MEDHOST’s patient portal offers the following streamlined benefits to help empower patients and improve patient outcomes:

• Increases visibility of health information. Key medical information, such as discharge summaries, patient education, summaries of care and lab results are immediately accessible to the patient over MEDHOST’s secure, online platform, thus increasing visibility.
• Facilitates direct communication with care teams. Empowering patients to participate in their care means direct access to their care teams. MEDHOST’s patient portal allows for multiple facilities and clinics to seamlessly connect and share data through secure messaging. For hospitals, this means that care referrals and transitions can be more easily coordinated as well to improve patient flow. 

• Boosts patient safety. Clinicians can make more informed decisions about care—and do it faster using automatic updates with summary-of-care reports to more effectively trace each patient’s continuum of care from one healthcare organization to another.
• Allows patient to transmit personal health data. Using the portal, patients can authorize a representative to view, download, or even transmit their personal health information, giving them more direct control of their care.

Care coordination is an imperfect system rife with ever-shifting complexities and unknowns, but the right patient-centered system can help your organization prioritize the patient experience and improve patient flow.

For a deeper dive into how to improve patient flow or more information about how MEDHOST’s portals empower both patients and providers, click here.