Healthcare workers are now digital workers: They need a better experience

It was at 3 a.m. in a busy hospital. Acute nursing patients have been admitted. The patient does have an electronic health record (EHR), but the file cannot be opened when the nurse tries to access the file to check for drug allergies and other details. The nurse reminded IT staff that the system was shut down and she needed information “statistics”. This disconnect between the needs of patients and staff and system performance is just one example of how doctors, nurses and other medical staff rely on the system to get up and run 24/7. That’s why the concept of smooth digital employee experience (DEX) is becoming a larger part of how IT teams can deliver system performance in a hospital environment.

Thinking of healthcare clinicians and employees as digital workers emphasizes the importance of addressing system performance issues that affect patient outcomes, their ability to provide care and job satisfaction, especially in 24/7 settings such as hospitals and other healthcare facilities. Healthcare workers are already lacking interoperability between systems, employees and providers and concerns about the privacy and security of patient data. IT teams and healthcare systems can alleviate some anxiety by providing workers with the best performing digital user experience, including doctors and other employees who are responsible for patient care.

Remedies that provide better digital experiences to optimize patient care

It is feasible to provide clinicians and employees with a smoother running digital experience. Here are five elements:

1. System monitoring – The ideal situation is to monitor all aspects of the digital experience to prevent problems from disrupting the healthcare worker’s day. A common situation is that medical staff experience unnecessary delays in desktop login. For example, a physician moves between multiple locations and devices during a shift, with no time to wait 40 seconds to access the application. With a holistic view of the system – from keyboard and mouse to the devices used, to how they connect to the back-end system – IT employees can isolate the problem and use DEX solutions to automatically remediate it, preventing damage and saving valuable time for doctors and employees.
2. Predictive analysis – Data is the fuel for operating system monitoring. Collecting true real-time data, as fast as every few seconds throughout the system, can identify issues like poor Wi-Fi connectivity or slow login and get them first solved. Analysis of current data also distinguishes between “normal” spikes or performance changes from events that need remediation. It knows when high CPU usage is a worker loading big data files instead of long spikes, which can be a wide network problem for the system.
3. IT Response – The hospital’s turn is shockingly frightened by the heart of fear being the night desk shift. Medical staff inevitably ask a question, which has to call more IT staff in the middle of the night to solve the problem. This makes medical staff absolutely unsatisfied. However, by predicting data analysis and preparing for “level 3 actions” performed through level 1, the help desk can have the advantage of up-to-date information on standby and be able to provide shorter time resolution for 3 employee callers of 3am or ideally, reporting the problem is over. In a critical 24/7 healthcare environment, it is crucial to improve call capability to solve performance issues. This also relieves the pressure on medical staff who can’t afford to waste downtime.
4. Safety – Healthcare workers must comply with patient data privacy compliance regulations and the ongoing threat of cyberattacks at work every day. The two pillars of concern can lead to “safety control friction”, in which case the need to meet the needs of digital experiences and the need to tightly control the threat can conflict. To achieve happy and feasible media measures, they must be run in the background without affecting the user experience. This is another reason for constant system monitoring, threat detection and automatic remediation and must be part of the DEX system. Using data collection and predictive analytics, in the backend, IT teams can evaluate whether hospitals use devices and applications or their networking systems are vulnerable. Monitoring can flag outdated security patches, as well as whether antivirus and antimalware are up to date, and can fully protect threats. Using data intelligence, the DEX system can initiate a repair to prevent it from reaching the medical worker’s desktop.
5. Access controls – Policy and access control are elements that often surface security frictions between medical staff and digital workers. If a doctor cannot log in quickly when meeting a patient, they may resort to paper that affects patient care. To minimize this friction, access control needs to be up-to-date as new doctors join hospitals or caregivers change roles and responsibilities. Controls must also be synchronized with onboarding and unloading activities to prevent security breaches.

Provide a better digital experience for healthcare workers

By improving performance issues through system monitoring and predictive analytics, IT teams can provide digital workspace environments that benefit everyone. Medical staff can avoid waste with login delays and system downtime. IT employees now have the power to solve problems before they reach the desktop. These three AM troublesome calls can be relic of the past.

Image: filograph, Getty Image

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