Strategic Content Dissemination for Healthcare Operational Efficiency
What knowledge dissemination strategies can improve operational efficiency in healthcare?
Published December 24, 2023.
In healthcare, operational efficiency is a matter of patient well-being. The more efficient a healthcare facility is, the better healthcare professionals can attend to patients, treat them, and offer them quality care.
Sharing content—from research and institution-wide documentation to industry best practices—with everyone in your organization, is a way of enhancing operational efficiency, collaboration, and patient outcomes. Let's take a look at how strategic content dissemination can drive operational efficiency.
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Meet the Expert
Ido Zamberg M.D. is a board-certified physician (General Internal Medicine and Anesthesia), currently a Fellow at the Division of Experimental Medicine, McGill University Health Center, Montreal, Canada.
What is Strategic Content Dissemination in Healthcare?
Strategic content dissemination is the planned and effective distribution of content. The purpose of this is to break down information barriers and promote knowledge flow across various departments and professional hierarchies.
In healthcare, for strategic content dissemination to work efficiently, you need a centralized knowledge management solution, where content is vetted transparently and its relevance is communicated to healthcare professionals.
This strategy ensures that protocols are not just communicated, but also thoroughly understood by relevant individuals at each stage of patient care.
Take hospitals with multiple sites for example, where each site may have different protocols for the same procedure due to variations in experience, surgeons, equipment, and resources. As a provider or stakeholder, when you create or update content or procedures for a specific site, it’s essential that all relevant individuals at that site are informed.
This is where strategic content dissemination comes into play. It ensures healthcare professionals, who often switch sites, are aware of the specific protocols at each site, leading to efficient, high-quality healthcare delivery.
How Strategic Content Dissemination Can Improve Operational Efficiency in Healthcare
When you have easy access to shared best practices and you're able to adhere to them, you'll not only see better patient outcomes but also improved operational efficiencies. Guidelines and protocols play a crucial role in streamlining patient care and enhancing the efficiency of hospital operations.
Strategic content dissemination ensures that these best practices, guidelines, and protocols aren't confined to manuals but are actively communicated and understood by healthcare professionals at the frontline.
Consider the preparation process for surgeries. Surgery cancellations, which are inefficient and costly, often occur due to non-adherence to preoperative guidelines. For example, a patient scheduled for laparoscopy may be on anticoagulants, increasing the risk of bleeding during surgery.
These medications should be stopped at a certain time before surgery. A failure to adhere to this protocol by the anesthesiologist, surgeon, or caring physician can lead to surgery cancellation.
It's a ripple effect that starts with informed decision-making, extends to optimized resource utilization, and ultimately translates into a more efficient, cost-effective healthcare system.
» Find out how to identify gaps in healthcare and close them.
5 Strategies for Effective Content Dissemination
1. Centralize Information
Healthcare organizations often rely on a fragmented approach to content dissemination, using multiple platforms and systems, making it difficult to access and share knowledge seamlessly.
When you implement a centralized health information system it serves as a single source for all healthcare-related information. This means you can easily locate the information you need, regardless of the department or location.
Imagine a scenario where nurses and physicians, often confined to different systems, can seamlessly access and contribute to a shared knowledge pool. The responsibility of maintaining this knowledge base is distributed across over 20 contributors in each department, leveraging the collective expertise within the organization.
A centralized health information platform also facilitates collaboration and knowledge exchange among healthcare providers, fostering a culture of continuous learning.
2. Enable Multiple Media Formats
Healthcare information is often dispersed across various formats, including written documents, medical images, videos, and presentations. This fragmentation hinders seamless knowledge sharing and accessibility.
With a system that supports multiple file formats, users can easily share and access information in their preferred formats, regardless of the original file type.
3. Offer Real-Time Updates
Healthcare information evolves rapidly, and outdated content can lead to misinformed decisions and compromised patient care. Implement a system for real-time updates, ensuring that healthcare professionals have access to the most current information at all times. Up-to-date information minimizes the risk of errors due to outdated practices or protocols.
4. Keep Information Secure
Healthcare organizations are entrusted with sensitive information, so it's important to protect from unauthorized access, breaches, and non-compliant practices. When assessing a solution, make sure it has a comprehensive security framework that adheres to stringent data privacy regulations, such as SOC2, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
5. Invest in a Secure Knowledge Management System
Implement a secure and scalable knowledge management system that can handle the volume and complexity of healthcare information. This ensures reliable access, storage, and retrieval of knowledge assets.
C8 Health's platform is tailored to the clinical setting, allowing you to organize your content in one place while pushing out updates that alert teams to changing guidance. With it you can:
- Add all of your organization’s best practices, guidelines, and protocols in one system.
- Quickly find what you’re looking for with an AI-powered search.
- Include a library of content in diverse formats that are easily disseminated across your team.
- Maintain a dynamic knowledge base that breaks down silos.
- Keep content vetted and up-to-date through automated workflows.
- Distribute the responsibility of maintaining content, ensuring it isn’t burdensome on a select few.
- Receive notifications when content needs attention, triggering a streamlined process for updates, edits, and validations.
C8 Health adheres to relevant compliances, including HIPAA, SOC2, and GDPR. Access to the platform is restricted to authorized personnel, ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of the information.
» Explore the power of unified knowledge management with C8 Health.
Dr. Daniel Katz (Vice Chair of Education, Department of Anesthesia, Mount Sinai) shares his experience of disseminating relevant content material strategically to all staff members and in the OR for the best patient outcome:
Share Knowledge Effectively for Better Patient Outcomes
It's not just about disseminating information, but how that information is disseminated. A recent clinical study found that strategies like reminders and group education are effective dissemination tactics that can impact patient outcomes.
With knowledge management platforms like C8 Health, you have the power to not just manage content effectively, but keep your team updated and provide them with easily accessible information for education. Embracing solutions like C8 Health goes beyond operational efficiency. It's a commitment to democratizing knowledge, breaking down divisions, and ultimately delivering high-quality, patient-centric care.
