TigerConnect News

TigerConnect Survey Confirms Widespread Support for Telehealth Among Providers and Patients

Posted by HIPAA Journal

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a major increase in healthcare providers offering telehealth services to patients. Virtual visits are being offered to reduce the number of patients visiting hospitals and physician offices to limit transmission of the virus to ensure patient safety. The increase in use is out of necessity, but new research confirms telehealth services are popular with providers and patients alike.

TigerConnect, the provider of the most widely adopted communication platform in healthcare, recently commissioned a comprehensive Harris Poll survey to explore attitudes to telehealth among patients and healthcare providers. The survey was conducted on 2,039 U.S. adults aged 18 or older between July 23-27, 2020 and 500 healthcare clinicians between June and July 2020.

88% of healthcare providers who were already offering telehealth services to patients saw an increase in the use of telehealth services due to the coronavirus pandemic, with 71% of providers saying there was a large increase in use. It is understandable that so many providers and patients have embraced telehealth in order to reduce infection risk and prevent transmission of the virus, but even when the pandemic is over it is likely that use of telehealth services will continue at the same or even an increased level. Over two thirds of providers (71%) believe use of telehealth services will continue at the same or even a higher level when the pandemic is over.

There is also strong support for telehealth services among patients. 87% of patients who tried telehealth said they were satisfied with the experience, with 7 out of 10 patients saying it is important for providers to offer telehealth services to patients. Many patients appear to prefer virtual visits to in-person visits. Only 40% of patients said they prefer to meet their providers face to face.

Patients may be apprehensive about trying telehealth, but once they have their first virtual visit they are keen to go virtual again. Patients who have had one telehealth or video consultation in the past year were twice as likely to express a strong preference for a virtual visit over an in-person visit.

When patients were asked if there was anything about telehealth they did not like, almost half of patients could not think of a single criticism about their experience. The main advantages of telehealth among patients were convenience (50%), allowing appointments to be kept that may otherwise have been cancelled (36%), and the ease at which health check-ups could be scheduled (34%). 52% of patients said they believe telehealth was a safe alternative to an in-person office visit.

Boomers (Over 55s) and Gen Z (Under 24s) were the age groups least satisfied with telehealth. The most common complaint among Boomers was excessive complexity, while the most common complaint with Gen Z users was a lack of features, showing there is clearly further scope for refinement.

The survey on clinicians revealed there is a majorly fragmented market, with 140 different telehealth solutions in use. 14% of respondents said they are currently using multiple telehealth solutions. That may well change after the pandemic is over and the notice of enforcement discretion of the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights expires. The notice of enforcement discretion for telehealth services temporarily allowed telehealth solutions to be used that may not be fully compliant with HIPAA requirements.

65% of respondents said they were happy with their current telehealth solutions and almost 90% of users of the TigerConnect platform said they were happy with the TigerConnect platform.

The survey also revealed there is strong bipartisan support for telehealth, with 77% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans believing healthcare providers should offer telehealth services to patients. There are still some challenges to overcome to ensure that telehealth services are accessible to all. 53% of surveyed patients living in urban areas had utilized telehealth services compared to just 31% of patients in rural areas, which suggests there may be issues with broadband availability and cellular reception in rural areas which is limiting uptake.

“The people have spoken: telehealth is here to stay,” said TigerConnect CEO Brad Brooks. “The overnight move to telehealth is one of the fastest cultural shifts in healthcare in decades, and this research reveals it has already transformed the habits of millions of Americans who can now access great healthcare as easily as they can catch a ride to the airport. It’s up to our industry to seize this moment and ensure that it’s as easy as possible for anyone to access or administer world-class healthcare anywhere and anytime to improve health outcomes for all Americans.”

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Webinar: 24/9 | Save Time & Reduce Stress with Automated On-Call Physician Scheduling

Posted by HIPAA Journal

Are you still using paper, whiteboards, and spreadsheets for staff scheduling? If so, you will probably not be surprised to hear there is a far better and more efficient way of creating, managing, and distributing staff schedules.

On Thursday, Sept. 24, TigerConnect is hosting a webinar to explain how automated, mobile-friendly, on-call physician scheduling, when integrated with a HIPAA-compliant messaging solution and systems such as EHRs, streamlines workflows, ensures accuracy, delivers fairness, reduces stress, and greatly reduces costs.

TigerConnect will explain how its secure messaging platform integrates with the new TigerSchedule physician scheduling solution to drive efficiency, improve staff satisfaction, deliver huge time savings, and help healthcare providers deliver better care.

Webinar Details:

Save Time & Reduce Stress with Automated On-Call Physician Scheduling

Date/Time:         Thursday, September 24 at 10 a.m. PT

The webinar will be hosted by:

Will O’Connor, M.D., TigerConnect Chief Medical Information Officer

Justin Wampach, TigerConnect Vice President, Scheduling

Click Here to Register for the Webinar

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TigerSchedule Automated On-Call Physician Scheduling Added to TigerConnect CC&C Platform

Posted by HIPAA Journal

TigerConnect has announced it has acquired Adjuvant’s Call Scheduler solution, which has now been incorporated into the TigerConnect clinical communication and collaboration (CC&C) platform as TigerSchedule™.

The Call Scheduler solution adds innovative on-call physician scheduling capabilities to the TigerConnect platform, allowing users to automate on-call and work assignments, improve efficiency, and bolster collaboration across complex healthcare teams. Close collaboration between clinicians is vital in healthcare and has become even more so during the COVID-19 era, as has the need to improve efficiency and cut costs with the revenue challenges caused by the pandemic.

TigerSchedule™ is a rules-based automated physician scheduling solution which has been made available as a standalone solution and also part of the TigerConnect Platform. The Adjuvant-developed solution already has an extensive user base in the United States, having been adopted by a wide range of healthcare organizations from care centers including Huntsville Memorial Hospital and Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula and medical clinics including Cardiac Specialists and Baptist Neurology.

The TigerSchedule™ solution offers healthcare providers several key benefits.

  • TigerSchedule™ adds new scheduling management capabilities to the TigerConnect platform.
  • The solution ensures fairness within the schedule, protects healthcare providers from being over-assigned, and ensures sufficient time between shifts to help prevent burnout.
  • Automated notifications are intelligently routed to the on-call schedule due to sickness, vacations, and patient cancellations.
  • Empowers providers to request the location and shift times they want and supports their preferences for text message notifications.
  • Simplifies shift swaps and changes and reduces the workload for managers.
  • A single view of all staff enables faster team collaboration and better resource optimization.
  • Rules-based automation and integration with EHRs improves scheduling and workflows.

“Reaching the right care team member quickly and efficiently is essential to providing excellent patient care. When you add the pressures of COVID-19 to the already existing whirlwind of paper schedules and unexpected shift changes, the challenge for caregivers is overwhelming. It can even be the difference between life and death,” said TigerConnect co-founder and CEO Brad Brooks. “TigerConnect with TigerSchedule™ helps healthcare systems streamline care delivery, improve outcomes, and enhance the patient experience while boosting the bottom line. It’s particularly valuable to healthcare organizations today, as they seek to reduce costs and improve patient and care team satisfaction.”

The acquisition of Call Scheduler will see President Justin Wampach join the TigerConnect team as Vice President, Scheduling Division, with the entire Call Scheduler workforce also joining TigerConnect.

“When Brad approached me and pitched the idea of being acquired, I admit we were flattered. I always felt our long-term strategy would involve us becoming a module within a broader product offering. We quickly realized that our offerings complemented each other well and it became obvious that joining forces would benefit our customers,” said Call Scheduler President, Justin Wampach.

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Webinar: July 30, 2020: How a Communication Platform Can Streamline Surgery Center Operations

Posted by HIPAA Journal

Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs) have diverse and dispersed physicians and can therefore face many challenges in coordinating schedules and optimizing workflows. Effective communication between staff members and with patients and their families is essential. Those challenges have become even more difficult during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the ways that successful ASCs have overcome these challenges is by adopting a secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth, texting, and collaboration platform. These platforms improve communication between doctors and healthcare staff, help with the coordination of schedules and streamlining of workflows, and make it easy for ASCs to provide telehealth visits and communicate with patients and families pre- and post-op. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these platforms have played an important role in keeping ASCs open and safe.

On Thursday, July 30, 2020, Dr. Andrew Brooks, Chief Medical Officer, TigerConnect, will be hosting a webinar and will provide insights gained from his work as an orthopedic surgeon and founder of seven successful ASCs.

During the webinar you will discover how ASCs can use a single, secure telehealth, texting, and clinical collaboration platform to optimize clinical workflows, coordinate physician schedules, establish communications best practices, conduct patient follow ups, and improve overall operations.

Webinar Details

Date:      Thursday, July 30 at 10 a.m. PT

Webinar is Hosted by:

Dr. Andrew Brooks, Chief Medical Officer, TigerConnect.

Register for the Webinar

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TigerConnect Rated Among Top Advanced Clinical Communications Platforms by KLAS

Posted by HIPAA Journal

TigerConnect, the most widely adopted care team collaboration solution, has been recognized by KLAS and rated among the top platforms in the KLAS Clinical Communications 2020 Advanced User Insights report.

KLAS is a healthcare IT data and insights company that conducts impartial research on software and services used by healthcare providers and payers worldwide. The company obtains feedback from healthcare professionals that are using software solutions and services, the insights are analyzed, trends are identified, and the company’s reports are used by healthcare organizations around the world to make decisions about healthcare software and services.

For the Clinical Communications 2020 Advanced User Insights report, KLAS collected data from multiple case studies and conducted in-depth interviews with three to five advanced users of each platform at organizations at the cutting edge of clinical communication to find out how these solutions have improved efficiency, security, and patient satisfaction. The report details the outcomes that have been achieved, the lessons learned by advanced users, and the range of workflows that each communication platform covers.

TigerConnect was recognized as having a very large customer base in both inpatient and non-inpatient care settings. KLAS found the platform to be highly customer centric, with nimble development for advanced users across different care settings. The platform had the most extensive breadth of workflows for advanced users out of all platforms assessed for the report and was the only clinical communications platform that had over 50% adoption of advanced workflows in nine out of the ten categories assessed.

TigerConnect was also rated the top vendor for patient-centered care team communications, pre-admission workflows, clinical support staff workflows, and discharge & post-discharge workflows. TigerConnect was recognized as having standout capabilities such as allowing communication to continue during EHR downtime, allowing care coordinators to coordinate care with referred caregivers, and the ability of the platform to link messages to patient records and pull all pertinent information for patient care.

“The KLAS report highlights one of TigerConnect’s biggest strengths – our ability to help healthcare organizations across the full continuum of care meaningfully connect and enhance outcomes,” says Brad Brooks, TigerConnect CEO. “More than 6,000 healthcare organizations rely on our platform to enable seamless collaboration in a scalable, fully integrated, easy-to-use solution. With so many challenges facing our industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, now is the time for innovation that enhances care and strengthens the bottom line.”

The post TigerConnect Rated Among Top Advanced Clinical Communications Platforms by KLAS appeared first on HIPAA Journal.

WEBINAR TODAY: How a Top ACO Drives Better Outcomes with Communication

Posted by HIPAA Journal

Accountable care organizations (ACOs) have to overcome many communication challenges to improve collaboration, efficiency, reduce costs, and deliver better quality care. Those challenges have been made even more difficult during the COVID-19 crisis.

One of the ways communication and collaboration can be improved is through the adoption of a healthcare communication and collaboration (CC&C) solution, as was discovered by Scottsdale, AZ-based Innovation Care Partners (ICP).

ICP is a physician-led clinical integration network and ACO that provides value-based patient care through more than 800 practices and 5 local hospitals.  ICP works with almost 2,000 distributed physicians and serves over 150,000 patients and strives to provide clinical quality, greater efficiency, improved collaboration, better access to care, and long-term cost-control.

On June 24, 2020, ICP and TigerConnect will be hosting a webinar in which ICP will explain how it has been possible to streamline workflows and establish best practices for care coordination, clinical team engagement, patient satisfaction, and COVID-19 provider and patient communications using the TigerConnect clinical communication and collaboration platform.

Join the webinar to discover how ICP has maximized value and improved patient care through effective communication across its entire network.

How a Top-Performing ACO Drives Better Outcomes with TigerConnect

Wednesday, June 24 at 10:30 a.m. PT / 1:30 p.m. ET

Register for the Webinar

 

The post WEBINAR TODAY: How a Top ACO Drives Better Outcomes with Communication appeared first on HIPAA Journal.

Telehealth Set to Stay so it’s Time to Get the Right Technology

Posted by HIPAA Journal

This year, in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency, the HHS’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) expanded coverage of telehealth service to include all Medicare beneficiaries, regardless of location.

Telehealth services eliminate the barriers to in-person care that have been created by the COVID-19 pandemic and allow practitioners to provide treatment to patients in their own homes and, by doing so, improve patient safety and control the spread of COVID-19. The expansion of coverage only applies during the coronavirus public health emergency, although calls have been increasing for the expanded CMS telehealth policies to continue after the public health emergency is declared over.

On June 9, 2020, in a virtual event on STAT News, CMS Administrator Seema Verma said she supported the permanent expansion of access to telehealth services. The FTC has also weighed, with executives expressing their support for the permanent removal of the geographical restrictions and continued expansion of the types of services that can be delivered by telehealth.

On May 21, 32 House members signed a letter urging Congress to give telehealth more time to prove itself and requested the relaxation of telehealth regulations to continue after the COVID-19 emergency period. The extension will ensure that sufficient data is collected to determine which of the new flexibilities should be made permanent.

Many providers and patients across the United States have taken advantage of telehealth services during the public health emergency and telehealth has proven popular with providers and patients alike. It is now looking likely that telehealth is here to stay, and virtual visits will replace in-person care in certain circumstances.

Telehealth was made much easier for providers by the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights, which issued a notice of enforcement discretion stating penalties and sanctions would not be imposed on healthcare providers for the good faith use of non-HIPAA-compliant communication technologies for providing telehealth services. That notice of enforcement discretion only applies during the public health emergency, after which healthcare providers will be required to switch to HIPAA-compliant solutions. Any provider that is not yet using a HIPAA-compliant telehealth application should now consider making the switch.

One HIPAA-compliant solution that has proven extremely popular during the pandemic is TigerTouch from TigerConnect.  TigerTouch combines, video, voice, and text messaging into one convenient mobile and desktop app which allows internal communication with care team members and patient communication through the same app. The solution also supports the sharing of files and medical images, and as a fully HIPAA-compliant solution, it allows ePHI to be securely shared. Healthcare providers that have adopted the solution report significant cost savings, improved workflow efficiency, better patient care, and happier staff and patients.

TigerConnect hosted a webinar to showcase the solution and explain how the integrations and telehealth features of the solution are helping to improve the quality of care, increase patient safety, and improve patient satisfaction levels.

The webinar is available on-demand on this link.

The post Telehealth Set to Stay so it’s Time to Get the Right Technology appeared first on HIPAA Journal.

Improving Communication with Patients During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency

Posted by HIPAA Journal

With lockdown measures in place to prevent the spread of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus, health systems have expanded their telehealth services to provide care to patients at home. Rather than have patients travel to hospitals and healthcare clinics, clinicians can make diagnoses and provide treatment to patients remotely using text messaging platforms and videoconferencing applications.

The HHS’ Office for Civil Rights issued a Notice of Enforcement Discretion in March confirming financial penalties will not be imposed on healthcare providers in relation to the good faith provision of telehealth services. OCR explained that it is permissible to use everyday communications solutions for providing telehealth services during the COVID-19 public health emergency, even if those platforms are not fully HIPAA-complaint.

While penalties for noncompliance may not be imposed for using these platforms, OCR warned that these consumer-grade platforms may introduce privacy risks, which patients should be made aware of. To ensure patient privacy and the security of any ePHI collected or disclosed during telehealth visits, HIPAA-compliant platforms should be used.

“Covered health care providers that seek additional privacy protections for telehealth while using video communication products should provide such services through technology vendors that are HIPAA compliant and will enter into HIPAA business associate agreements (BAAs) in connection with the provision of their video communication products,” explained OCR in its Notice of Enforcement Discretion.

New Telehealth Features Added to Popular HIPAA-Compliant Communication Solution

The HIPAA-compliant healthcare communication and collaboration solution provider, TigerConnect, has announced new features have been added to its TigerTouch text messaging solution to support voice and video calls with patients during the COVID-19 nationwide public health emergency.

In contrast to many consumer-focussed apps, which are not HIPAA-compliant and introduce privacy risks, TigerTouch is a fully HIPAA-compliant healthcare communication solution. TigerTouch combines the usability of mobile-centric communication applications such as WhatsApp, with bulletproof security controls to ensure the privacy of patients is protected.

TigerTouch can be used by healthcare providers to directly engage with patients, no matter where they are located. Clinicians can use TigerTouch for 1-on-1 conversations with patients or group conversations at any point during a health event, from diagnosis to hospitalization to follow ups with patients after they have been discharged. The solution is ideal for conducting virtual visits with patients, allowing them to remain in the safety of their own homes.

“Patients today expect a fast and easy direct line of communication with their healthcare provider, yet it’s easier to text my pizza delivery guy than to text my doctor,” said TigerConnect co-founder and CEO Brad Brooks. “COVID-19 has driven home how important it is to get treatment anywhere remotely to protect both patients and doctors. By relying on a simple, much-beloved text platform, we designed TigerTouch to deliver a powerful telehealth solution at a fraction of the cost of more complicated solutions. This is a vital advance that enables health systems to deepen patient support right when they need it most.”

The TigerConnect platform has been adopted by more than 6,000 healthcare providers and more than 10 million messages are sent through the platform every day by healthcare providers such as Danville, PA-based Geisinger Health System. “At Geisinger, we’ve already seen the tremendous value of TigerConnect with improved communication across the entire health system, so bringing patients into these conversations is the next logical step that could greatly improve the quality of the care we provide,” said Dr. Jonathan Slotkin, Geisinger Health Systems’ Director of Spinal Surgery.

The post Improving Communication with Patients During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency appeared first on HIPAA Journal.

Webinar Today: One Secure Video, Voice & Text Solution for Patients & Providers

Posted by HIPAA Journal

The secure, HIPAA-compliant communication and collaboration platform provider TigerConnect is hosting a webinar to explain how healthcare providers can easily engage patients at home and collaborate with staff across an entire health system using the same secure app.

In the webinar you will discover how the advanced integrations and telehealth features of the TigerConnect platform make patients and care teams instantly reachable, leading to fewer readmissions, happier patients, and better care.

Date:   Friday, April 10 at

Time:   10:00 am PT / 1:00 pm ET
Webinar with demo followed by Q&A

Hosted by:
Dr. Will O’Connor, Chief Medical Information Officer, TigerConnect
Tommy Wright, Director of Product Marketing, TigerConnect

Register Here

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