How healthcare suppliers can put together for flu season

Flu season is quickly approaching, which implies healthcare suppliers should ramp up their preparedness efforts. What can they do to make sure they’re prepared to satisfy the seasonal surge in demand?

Recent data from the southern hemisphere, usually a forecast of what’s to return within the US, means that this 12 months’s flu season will doubtless be much like final 12 months. The CDC warns that whereas “we can’t predict what is going to occur in the US this upcoming season, we all know that flu has the potential to trigger important sickness, hospitalizations and deaths.”

With lots of of hundreds of individuals hospitalized annually, suppliers should discover methods to arrange for rising affected person volumes and handle the chance of an infection amongst sufferers and employees to maintain providers operating easily. Making IT as straightforward as doable for sufferers to guide and attend vaccination appointments will likely be vital. Digital affected person entry would be the key to streamlining affected person care.

Utilizing digital instruments to arrange for flu season 2024-25

As providers face rising strain, digital and automatic instruments will help healthcare suppliers put together for flu season by easing employees burdens. Extra sufferers imply extra appointments to schedule, extra registration types to fill out and extra folks in ready rooms.

Opening the digital entrance door helps handle excessive volumes by permitting sufferers to finish extra entry duties on-line and forestall bottlenecks. Listed here are three methods to implement to assist employees and sufferers by way of a difficult season:

1. Handle an infection threat with on-line self-scheduling

An on-line affected person scheduling platform has two clear advantages – IT relieves strain on employees throughout busy instances and offers suppliers management over affected person circulate. Fewer calls must be made by name middle brokers. No-shows are much less doubtless as a result of sufferers can guide, reschedule and cancel appointments, and obtain automated reminders, which makes the most effective use of physicians’ time. On-line scheduling additionally performs a component in an infection management as suppliers can incorporate screening protocols to establish sufferers with signs of COVID-19 or flu, and handle their onward care pathway appropriately.

Empowering shoppers to take management of their healthcare with a affected person scheduling system may encourage vaccine registrations, which might assist cut back the burden on Health serviceswhen staffing shortages stay stubbornly excessive.

What’s extra, sufferers now anticipate the pliability and comfort of scheduling appointments at a time and place that fits them. Experian Health’s 2024 State of Affected person Entry surveydiscovered that six in ten sufferers need extra digital instruments to handle their healthcare. This means a rising demand for straightforward, easy and clear processes.

Watch the webinar: See how IU Health used self-scheduling to handle rising affected person volumes with much less employees – and acquire insights on utilizing digital scheduling to scale operations past flu season.

2. Supply cellular registration to handle demand

Ought to affected person volumes enhance, affected person entry employees will likely be underneath much more strain than standard. Something that may cut back the executive burden will likely be a win. Experian Health’s Registration Accelerator permits sufferers to finish consumption types and insurance coverage checks by way of their cellular gadgets earlier than stepping by way of the door. Their particulars will be pre-filled routinely, decreasing the chance of error. This creates a faster, extra environment friendly affected person registration expertise that minimizes points for employees to resolve.

Cell-enabled registration can be way more interesting for sufferers, who’d slightly full registration from the consolation of residence than sit in a ready room filling out prolonged types. Plus, IT reduces in-person interactions, thus minimizing publicity to an infection amongst employees and sufferers.

Provided that 89% of sufferers say digital or paperless pre-registration is vital to them, suppliers that supply on-line affected person consumption options can have a transparent benefit in attracting potential new prospects throughout instances of excessive demand.

In follow: See how West Tennessee Healthcare changed clipboards with clicks with Registration Accelerator.

3. Cut back no-shows and enhance engagement with automated affected person outreach

Suppliers should talk proactively with sufferers to maintain them within the loop because the state of affairs evolves. With an open fee of 98%, textual content messages are a direct and handy option to talk rapidly with sufferers.

Automated affected person outreach can enhance vaccination charges by notifying sufferers about flu shot availability and providing a direct hyperlink to schedule an appointment. Automated reminders cut back no-show charges and assist guarantee no slot goes unused as affected person volumes enhance. Messages can even embrace tailor-made directions for particular at-risk teams to emphasise the significance of well timed vaccination and supply instructions.

This method helps handle affected person circulate, enhance affected person satisfaction and guarantee suppliers are ready for the seasonal surge.

Contact Experian Health right now to learn the way digital affected person entry options will help healthcare suppliers put together for flu season in 2024.