Divisions of Family Practice Adopts OnPage to Enhance Clinical Communication

Effective healthcare communication requires proper software and processes to ensure that the right person receives timely messages. Unfortunately, Divisions of Family Practice (DoFP), a large community-based network of physicians located in British Columbia, Canada, relied on a third-party answering service to connect long-term care facilities (LTCFs) with on-call providers. This ineffective communication process resulted in poor patient care and expensive answering service costs for on-call clinicians.

This post discusses how OnPage’s clinical communication system, alongside dedicated lines, improved DoFP’s communication workflows, allowing the organization to provide accessible, sustainable health services for British Columbia’s thriving rural communities.

Challenges: Prior to Adopting OnPage

DoFP used a third-party answering service to relay information from LTCFs to on-call physicians via simple, ineffective text messages. This mode of communication did not fare well during the COVID-19 pandemic, as it introduced fragmented communications to DoFP’s workflows. The pandemic also increased call volumes for DoFP’s answering service, resulting in human error in relaying information to an on-call care provider. 

Additional challenges the organization faced includes:

• Wasted time in connecting the answering service with the on-call clinician
• Costly answering service bills at the end of each month
• Missed critical alerts
• Labor-intensive, manual management of paper schedules

Solution: OnPage’s Clinical Communication System With Dedicated Lines

DoFP turned to OnPage to enhance its communication workflows. With OnPage’s decade-long expertise and strategic guidance at every step of implementation, DoFP seamlessly implemented OnPage’s clinical communication system and dedicated lines to bring more efficiency to its communication workflows.

OnPage’s dedicated lines, powered by voicemail capabilities, enabled LTCF staff to access physicians promptly. This eliminated miscommunication errors that often occurred with the old, ineffective communication process.

The OnPage system offered on-call scheduling capabilities via its powerful, secure web-based console. DoFP leveraged OnPage’s digital scheduler to provide 24/7 care coverage for its LTCF communities. The cloud-based platform decentralized scheduling and minimized staff hours that went to maintaining or updating on-call schedules. 

How DoFP Uses OnPage

A LTCF simply dials a dedicated number to connect with an IVR that prompts them to leave a voicemail with a callback number. The voicemail and callback number are delivered to the on-call physician’s OnPage mobile application. That way, physicians get contextual information on the patient’s medical issues before they respond with a callback. The voicemails can be transcribed into text for the benefit of those physicians that can’t play the voicemail aloud.

If the first doctor on call does not respond, the voicemail escalates to the next on-call specialist. In the rare case that no one responds, the voicemail fails over to the specified group administrator.

“Healthcare organizations must embrace technology, especially when it presents opportunities to directly impact patient care and patient satisfaction levels. An obvious first step is to leverage mobile phone technology to optimize clinical communication workflows and automate processes that would otherwise entail manual intervention. By just doing that, you’ll notice how much you’re able to eliminate human errors.”

“When it comes to doctors on call, there’s no room for human error that can lead to serious medical mishaps and casualties. A system like OnPage, when working as intended, can solve major healthcare communication challenges.”

Sharon Todd, DoFP Program Manager

Benefits of Adopting the OnPage System

As demonstrated by this case, OnPage’s clinical communication solution modernized DoFP’s communication workflows. OnPage allowed DoFP to:

• Avert miscommunication between LTCF members and on-call physicians
• Reduce response time and improve process efficiency
• Expedite the crisis communication process
• Reduce answering service costs for on-call providers
• Ensure reliable and quick message delivery
• Gain centralized, secure access to digital schedulers

Conclusion

Thousands of organizations across the globe, such as Divisions of Family Practice, trust OnPage’s secure alerting solution to enhance care team communication and collaboration. OnPage empowers healthcare organizations of all sizes to augment their workflows to deliver exceptional, timely patient care.