In an interview with the Journal of Clinical Pathways, Robert Stillman, MA, RN, describes some of the latest innovations in health care communications technology and how providers can use these tools to improve their practices and provide value-based care. Stillman participated in a session titled “Best Practices in Care Team Communication Technology” at the 2024 National Comprehensive Cancer Network annual conference.

Transcript:

Robert Stillman, MA, RN: My name is Rob Stillman. I'm the director of clinical research informatics at The Ohio State University James Comprehensive Cancer Center.

What are you the most excited to share with attendees from your presentation?

Robert Stillman: I'm most excited to share how technology has helped with communication between caregivers. Oftentimes we think it's just between doctors and nurses or nurses and nurses, but amongst a really a multidisciplinary team that actually stretches beyond care environments.

So again, we're kind of always sort of thinking singularly between like our inpatient and ambulatory settings, and the technology that's available really helps go well beyond that.

What are some of the latest innovations in health care communications technology?

Robert Stillman: So there's a few. I think to start is the idea that nurses, for example, used to have a tool belt of equipment needed just for communication. So, you know, a phone that they may have or a pager, something that may be connected to a patient's call light system. Things like alarms, telemetry alarms or patient alarms, and all of those things all came at a caregiver from a variety of different places. And really one of the exciting things as of late is that all of these, all of this information is really consolidated in one place in the sort of technology that we have now or things like all-in-one devices.

And the ability to be able to communicate with patients to know what's going on in real time without having to necessarily go to a room is an example. The ability to communicate with providers is also in real time. So using things like text, or messaging through the electronic medical record, are all very new.

There are things that we're trying to get used to, but they enhance the ability to communicate with the overall care team and even with patients, which is really a big change from the past.

What are some of the challenges of applying these new technologies in practice?

Robert Stillman: So just as exciting, people like me that are excited about all of those, the use of technology to enhance communication, there are plenty who don't necessarily like the distraction that that could provide. Even though if you consider what I mentioned about, you know, all of those different ways of contacting a health care provider or a nurse or even a pharmacist, came through a lot of different mechanisms and all being consolidated into one. There are some challenges in being able to utilize that technology effectively and so that you're not distracted by it.

And there are even patient perceptions of what that looks like as well. You know, we're using iPhones or, you know, or some sort of smartphone to interact with this technology. And sometimes that can be mistaken for not engaging with patients or not engaging with each other and that you are doing something personal on those phones as opposed to that is a tool to help you in your role. So I think that that's one of the biggest challenges.

The other challenge is making sure that we continue to have face-to-face communication and conversation. These are tools to help facilitate and maybe make sure that information is passed more quickly, but it doesn't replace communication and the need. There are always and always will be times when people need to have, you know, real-time face-to-face or voice-to-voice conversation. So I think those are the big challenges that I see.

How can providers use these innovations to improve their practices and help them to provide value-based care?

Robert Stillman: Well, that's a good question. I think what this does is it opens up communication to a much broader part of the multidisciplinary teams. So again, I mentioned in the beginning, a lot of communication was really done between physician and nurse maybe. And things like a secure texting and chatting either via phone through the EMR as an example, allows the ability to communicate much, much quicker with teams like your care management, your pharmacists, social workers, PTOT, you know, a much broader range of the care team to help address the needs of a patient. I think particularly when you're looking at value -based care is what do you need to help get that patient what they need to get them out of the hospital, as an example. I think in my former days, you know, taking care of patients and the discharge plan and how challenging it was to get everybody in sort of the same place to have a solid discharge plan for patients and getting them out of the hospital in a way that's safe, and that they may not be readmitted as an example.

Being able to have that broad communication with a broad team of folks involved in that patient care, I think is really to me is a game changer. And I look ahead to my daughter for example who's in nursing school who won't have to face some of the challenges that I did in sort of gathering resources. So that's one way that I see it.

Do you have anything else you'd like to add? Any final thoughts?

Robert Stillman: I think when we're talking about this technology, it's not just amongst the caregivers, it's also among patients and that ability to communicate with patients. And going back a little bit to some of that resistance is that there has been resistance in communication with patients in real time. And if you consider things like patient portals or even equipment at a bedside, the ability to have a conversation with a patient where you might not be in the room, is really great for the patients and engaging patients in their care. But there may be some fear of that and fear of how that might be abused.

And that's something that I've never actually seen happen or heard happen. And patients actually embrace the technology in ways that we might not expect.

So, I think it's safe to say that don't stereotype patients and how they might use technology, and don’t be afraid to engage with patients in the same way that you might be willing to engage with the health care team. So that would be my other additional thought.