Clinicians and nurses contend with infectious diseases every day. The Covid-19 pandemic is highlighting this stressful aspect of care, partly because it is highly contagious, and also because it’s creating unprecedented demand to protect hospital staff coupled with the need to optimise patient flow.

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Effective communication is essential for optimising throughput and capacity, which are key to managing patient surges anticipated during a pandemic of this scale. A hospital must be able to move patients through the continuum of care quickly and safely. 

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When a hospital’s communication and clinical systems are integrated, processes can be automated, reducing the risk of communication delays or errors and shortening the time to react. Automatic alerts sent when certain triggers occur means caregivers don’t need to constantly monitor the EHR for status updates. Critical lab results, as an example, can be sent directly to the right care team member in real time. Patient care is expedited, throughput is improved, and clinicians have less to remember, alleviating cognitive burden. Deploying notifications intelligently reduces the toil and stress on care teams.

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In this challenging time, it has never been more critical to keep staff and patients safe and in touch with each other. By taking advantage of systems integrations, intelligent workflows, and hands-free communication devices, hospitals can advance their protection efforts now.