Benefits, Outcomes of EHR Vendor Clinical Communication Platforms

Epic

Epic’s clinical communication platform, Secure Chat, received a 91.7 rating out of 100 from its users. Customers were 100 percent confident in the vendor’s ability to achieve desired outcomes. 

Clinicians can access Secure Chat through one of Epic’s mobile apps or while logged into Epic’s workstation software. Many physicians access the platform through their smartphones, giving them access to all patient context, care team information, and recent documentation.

Providers, nurses, and health system support staff were most likely to use the platform. Customers who used Epic’s communication platform saw a reduction in overhead hospital costs, more efficient communication with non-clinician staff,  improved patient team collaboration, and improved patient care.

Cerner

Cerner’s CareAware Connect platform received an overall score of 72.5 for customer experience. The platform sends alarms, messages, and other communication to nurses’ mobile devices. Cerner offers applications that clinicians can use concurrently with the platform to save images in the EHR and for mobile clinical documentation.

Nurses and providers are most likely to use CareAware Connect, according to customer responses. Customers saw several improvements after using the platform, including nurse satisfaction, efficiency of clinical support staff, patient satisfaction and care, and physician satisfaction.

While the vendor saw significant improvements in some areas, it fell just below the market average for communication workflows and customer confidence ratings.

Halo Health

Halo Clinical Collaboration Platform was the highest-rated solution in the KLAS report with a score of 92. The cloud-based platform connects to voiceover IP, nurse call systems, and EHR systems. Many acute care and ambulatory organizations use the platform for clinician-to-clinician messaging.

Customer confidence and communication workflow ratings were both over the market average. Halo Health’s customers saw all of the same improvements that both Cerner and Epic customers experienced and received an A or an A- on all six customer experience categories.

Hillrom

Hillrom’s Voalte Platform consists of Voalte Me for physicians and Voalte One, which nurses commonly use, the report noted. The platform mainly caters to acute care settings and can accommodate bring-your-own-device and shared-device strategies. The platform received a customer experience score of 88.3.

Hillrom received customer confidence and communication workflow ratings below the market average, but customers still saw improvements in user satisfaction, patient satisfaction, and support staff efficiency.

Mobile Heartbeat

HCA Healthcare-owned Mobile Heartbeat received a 91.5 for its MH-CURE communication platform, however, the small amount of customer responses led to limited data, KLAS noted.

The platform aims to help large acute care organizations standardize nurse communication workflows. Customers cited reduced patient wait times as the most significant outcome due to the platform’s ability to pull in patient information from EHR interfaces.

PerfectServe

Customers rated PerfectServe’s communication platform an 87.7.

“Customers report tremendous value-adds from the communication platform’s on-call scheduling, call routing, and dynamic notifications,” the report stated. “With their focus on automated communication routing and workflows, PerfectServe has built out a variety of interfaces and functionality, including acute care/ambulatory scheduling, call center, and after-hours service capabilities.”

PerfectServe acquired Telemediq, which also offers a communication platform that received a 90.5 customer experience score. The platform addresses in-patient and out-patient workflows and uses scheduling software and EHR interfaces to pull in patient information. Customers gave Telemediq a high confidence rating.

Both of the PerfectServe platforms led to similar customer improvements as the previous vendors.

TigerConnect

TigerConnect’s platform received a 90.3 for overall customer experience. The vendor recently acquired a middleware company and a scheduling solution to improve its platform.

The platform is popular among administrative staff due to its cloud-based infrastructure. TigerConnect produced improved staff satisfaction rates and more efficient physician clinics and outpatient care for its customers.

Vocera

The vendor offers two clinical communication platforms, following its acquisition of PatientSafe Solutions. The first platform offers wearable devices that allow for hands-free communication and a mobile application that supports visuals and messaging. The platform received a 90 for customer experience.

Vocera Edge, previously PatientSafe Solutions, received a 90.2. The cloud-based platform can pull in EHR context and also send data back to the EHR, assisting staff with positive patient identification.

Nurses at acute care hospitals frequently use the platform due to its alerts and notifications integration.

Both Vocera platforms received high customer confidence ratings and similar user outcomes as the other vendors.