Empowering patients to take better care of themselves is another crucial dimension of care coordination. Health professionals increasingly need to manage care for patients not only when they’re at the clinic or hospital, but also after they’ve left. And patients want to be able to have tools they can use at home to help them monitor their health and stay connected with their care team. So it’s exciting to see how today’s cloud and mobile technologies make it easier than ever to do all that.

For example, a Hospital in Norway provides COPD patients with a pulse oximeter that they can use at home along with a tablet. Patients and their care teams can monitor the pulse oximeter measurements to improve the patients’ COPD management. Patients can also easily meet with their health providers using the tablet, saving time for health professionals and patients alike.

And in Denmark, patients are empowered to do their physical therapy exercises at home with expert guidance using Virtual Rehabilitation. Based on Microsoft Kinect for Windows, this device helps lead patients through rehabilitation exercises, monitors and corrects their movements in real time, and makes it possible for healthcare practitioners to see whether patients have completed their therapies. To see how it works, check out this two-minute video. You can also read more about it in my colleague Sarah Muckler’s blog.

These are just a couple examples of how modern tools can empower patients and help care teams coordinate patient-centric care. Check out more customer stories and Microsoft partners.

And please feel free to share your own patient empowerment story via email, Facebook, or Twitter. Please also let us know if you have any questions or comments.

The post Real-world examples of patient empowerment appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Care team communication and collaboration has always been vital to patient care. But it’s even more critical today as health services delivery becomes more complex. Often, multiple providers are involved and care extends outside of clinics and hospitals to people’s homes.

The patient safety ramifications of poor care team communication are highlighted in the IDC white paper “The Mobile Professional in Healthcare: Improving Care Team Collaboration through Unified Communication and Collaboration (UC&C).” It also points out that health professionals use an average of three devices during their workday and need tools that work seamlessly across those devices. One of the key findings in the paper is that health organizations are increasingly taking advantage of cloud services to address these challenges and improve care team collaboration, while saving money.

Indeed, today’s cloud and mobile technologies make it easier than ever to coordinate health services across organizations and communities—and deliver patient-centric care.

Patient-centered collaboration can now start even before the patient arrives at a hospital or clinic. For example, a regional ambulance service in Austria is using a solution from icomedias to capture patient data on tablets and share it in real time so that hospital staff can know the patient’s emergency condition prior to arrival. Whereas before emergency medical personnel had to fill out up to 600 fields on paper forms, they can now use touch, voice, or pen capabilities to quickly capture field notes. They can also take pictures of a patient wound, for example, and it will be instantly integrated into their report.

“The emergency medical service is about saving lives in extremely critical situations—every second counts,” says Klaus Pessenbacher, Chief Physician MD and Head of Emergency Medical Services, Federal State Government of Styria, Austria. “Using the mobile solution HYBRID.FORMS by icomedias, we document all measures taken in a reliable, legally compliant, and quick way. By replacing paper with digital forms, essential information can be sent to the hospital before the patient arrives. Forms automation reduces risks, saves money, and we gain more time for our core life-saving tasks.”

Another great example of a mobile solution for improving care team collaboration and productivity comes from Rapid Circle. With its solution, health professionals can have their own personal home page that’s consistent and adapts across all their devices. Rather than having to open up a bunch of different applications to do their work, health professionals can see their text, voice, and email messages on their customized home page. They can see the status of their patients, shift handoff notes, the availability of specialists, and more. They can even create their own apps to help with things like exchanging work shifts. All of this makes it faster and easier for care teams to work together and stay up to date on patients’ conditions and needs.

These are just a few examples of the exciting ways that health organizations and technology vendors are taking advantage of today’s mobile and cloud technologies to make it easier for health professionals to collaborate in real time—with the ultimate result being patient-centered care. Check out more customer stories and Microsoft partners.

And stay tuned for my next blog in the coming weeks, which will share some great examples of another crucial element of care coordination: patient empowerment.

In the meantime, please feel free to share your own care team communication story via email, Facebook, or Twitter. Please also let us know if you have any questions or comments.

The post Real-world examples of instant care collaboration with icomedias, Rapid Circle appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.