Making sure patients have all the pre-op information they need — before they arrive at your ASC for surgery — is a simple and proactive way to enhance the patient experience, and in some cases, even improve health outcomes.
Thankfully, technology is making it easier than ever for ASCs to keep patients in the know. According to Outpatient Surgery magazine, if you’re not using at least one of these five apps, you should give careful consideration to how they could save your facility valuable time and unnecessary frustration.
1. MyCareText
This simple text messaging tool keeps patients and their designated family members in communication with their healthcare providers from pre-op through recovery. There’s no need for patients to download an app or join a portal. They simply receive HIPAA-compliant texts directly to their cell phone with helpful reminders about things like pre and post-op instructions, medication pick-up, and follow-up appointments.
2. EASE
Family members can get real-time updates while they sit in the waiting room with this revolutionary app. Without leaving the operating room, your ASC can send texts, photos, and videos using EASE, and the HIPAA-compliant messages disappear after 60 seconds.
This automated app features a dynamic timeline that delivers information to patients based on the treatment phase they are in, which ensures they don’t get overloaded with too much information at once. Like other apps, it sends push notifications for appointment and prescription reminders. But, it also gives ASCs the ability to ask the patient questions and get direct feedback about important things like pain level, rehabilitation efforts, etc.
4. Simple Admit
This web-based app helps streamline the paper-driven admission and payment process by allowing patients to enter their own health histories and payment information online. It also gives ASC staff the ability to send two-way text messages.
5. StreaMD
This app helps improve patient adherence with automated step-by-step coaching before and after the procedure. Like other apps on this list, patients receive text messages with appointment reminders as well as pre and post-op instructions. They also get targeted video content that shows them how to do things like perform rehab exercises.
No matter which of these apps is best for your ASC, we can all agree that patients, both young and old, are moving away from paper-based communication. It’s so easy to lose or misplace written surgery instructions. However, everyone keeps track of their cell phone. By using one of these HIPAA-compliant apps, you increase the odds that your facility’s important messages will be received and followed.
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