The State of Unified Communications in Healthcare 2022

Unified Communications in Healthcare for 2022

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The State of Unified Communications in Healthcare 2022
Unified Communications

Published: January 14, 2022

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

The demand for unified communications and UCaaS tools is growing rapidly – thanks in no small part to the changes prompted by the pandemic. Today’s teams need to be able to operate faster than ever, with access to specialist support on a range of channels. The only way to ensure business continuity and efficiency, is with a unified approach. 

As remote work, telemedicine, and other common healthcare trends continue to emerge, healthcare has increased its dependence on UC. Mordor Intelligence suggests the UCaaS market will grow at a rate of 18.3% in the healthcare space up to the year of 2026, enabling the sector to provide a better quality of patient care. 

From doctors’ offices and hospitals to pharmaceutical and life sciences centres, unified communication provides an opportunity to streamline communication process and create new standards of care. 

The Growing Demand for UC in Healthcare

In the healthcare landscape, Unified Communications is becoming an essential component of keeping increasingly distributed teams connected over a shared approach to patient care. The fundamental goal of UC is to deliver exceptional opportunities for digital collaboration – something crucial to success in the medical field. 

Professionals in the healthcare landscape spend a lot of time on their feet, rushing between patients and different destinations. With the workforce now more distributed than ever, mobile clinics, in-home care specialists and telehealth providers need to extend the workplace. The traditional office must expand to suit a new era of care – one driven by unified communications. 

Used correctly, UC in the healthcare space can:

  • Improve interactions between specialists: UC keeps specialists, institutions, and experts aligned on the same network to collaborate efficiently on complex health issues. This allows for faster diagnosis, treatment, and care management
  • Reduced internal costs: Smoother, faster communications save precious moments in the healthcare landscape. When team members spend less time searching for lab results and other information, the company saves money. Estimates also indicate that eliminating mistakes in healthcare coordination could save the industry up to $38.2 billion annually
  • Improving patient care: Access to unified communication allows companies to engage in various forms of modern healthcare practices. This can include enabling access to telehealth opportunities, so patients can seek support wherever they are, no matter the situation
  • Improved data management: The Unified Communication landscape streamlines the sharing and management of data in the healthcare environment, ensuring almost any professional can have access to the information required to make important decisions. At the same time, UC solutions can be designed to remain compliant with patient privacy and compliance guidelines

Trends Driving UC in Healthcare

The potential impact of unified communications in healthcare could be astronomical. In many ways, the healthcare space is just like any other industry. To stay ahead of an increasingly disruptive digital landscape, organisations need to invest in tools and systems which enable flexibility. Healthcare, like any industry, requires a real-time, cloud-based, and mobile solution. 

Of course, there are some trends in the healthcare industry gaining more attention than others right now. The rise of the pandemic, and the changing nature of patient care has prompted a greater focus on everything from telemedicine to IoT integrations. Here are some major trends worth following:

  • The rise of telemedicine: Telemedicine solutions began appearing rapidly in the healthcare market when the pandemic hit, as the only safe option patients had for accessing appropriate care. With UCaaS, the healthcare space can connect with patients in a host of different ways, including through video conferencing, and audio interactions. It’s even possible for some patients to message their care providers in certain aspects of healthcare. This will likely continue as patients look for easier ways to interact with doctors outside of in-person appointments which require extensive travel
  • Intelligent technology: The rise of artificial intelligence is significant in almost every part of the UC environment. However, it can be particularly useful in fast-paced environments like healthcare, where huge amounts of data need to be managed on a daily basis. AI solutions in the healthcare space can help with anonymizing and collecting crucial information, to improve patient care without compromising on compliance. Intelligent tech can even help with automating customer interactions and booking appointments
  • Extensive collaboration: Around 94% of nurses don’t believe EHRs have positively impacted communications between doctors and nurses. Yet demand for positive collaboration and communication strategies is increasingly crucial in the healthcare space. UCaaS will open the door to better interactions between specialists, doctors, and nurses wherever they are. When teams can communicate and share information more efficiently on the move, patients benefit from a better level of care
  • Integrations: Integrations in the UCaaS environment are another trending concept for a lot of healthcare companies. Many healthcare groups are already working with a wide variety of apps and tools to stay as efficient and productive as possible. The increasingly flexible UCaaS environment will allow teams to integrate access to everything from IoT tracking tools for monitoring patient wearables, to patient data systems

The Challenges to Overcome

With the correct vendor and access to the right technology, healthcare groups from all over the world can access amazing results from UCaaS technology. Unfortunately, there are challenges that still need to be considered in this landscape. For instance, although the increasingly open environment of the UCaaS landscape means positive things for the healthcare team, it may still be difficult for some groups to integrate legacy tools with modern, cloud-based systems.

Healthcare organisations may need to look into things like APIs and custom integrations to enable links between some disparate systems. At the same time, security and compliance represent significant considerations for companies in the healthcare landscape. Medical professionals are held to exceptional high standards when it comes to protecting patient data and privacy.

The correct UCaaS solutions will need to be compliant with HIPAA standards for healthcare brands to consider using them in the years ahead. Additional intelligence and threat-detection tools may also become a more common feature in the healthcare space. 

 

 

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