In most hospitals and healthcare facilities, whiteboards are the central communication conduit for patient information. They’re the most common source of patient information, referred to by providers, Nurses, family members, and most importantly, patients themselves. Instead of using costly manual whiteboards, healthcare facilities can reduce expenses by selecting an integration platform to tie their systems together.

Reducing length of stay and readmissions

You can reduce patient visits with a comprehensive system of digital, condition-specific educational material. One study shows that 75% of patients using on-demand education felt that specific education helped them understand their health condition. E-learning is especially effective. This type of content delivery gives facilities a way to engage patients in their care plan, set expectations, and increase completion by 20%. This has a significant impact on reducing readmissions, and in turn, hospitals can reduce patient length of stay by as much as eight hours or more. In addition, you can release patients as much as three hours sooner with multimedia education assignment.

Cost savings aren’t limited to education alone. Giving paper educational content to patients consists of printing reams of paper handouts and sending additional copies home with them. Depening on a patient’s overall literacy and comprehension level, handouts may or may not be read and understood. An integrated interactive whiteboard system provides the ability to prescribe, assign and push educational healthcare content directly to patients. When managed efficiently, digital education has a demonstrable effect on readmissions since patients are still in care. That’s a key performance indicator CMS uses to measure (and penalize) healthcare facilities on quality of care.

Factoring in the costs associated with all of this printed material often isn’t taken into consideration when looking at whether to adopt an integration platform. Large hospitals can print as much as eight million pages per year at an average cost of $3.8 million. With a centrally managed system, hospitals can reduce costs by as much as 35-40% (or more) in total print volume. That doesn’t include a 30% or more reduction in toner and ink costs. In total, that adds up to to an average 25-35% total reduction in externally sourced print costs across the supply chain.

What if you could increase patient literacy through a comprehensive digital education content system? Reducing readmissions and related costs, and even CMS penalties, can be vastly improved with multimedia education. More than 125,000 deaths occur each year from cardiovascular and heart conditions alone. It’s not surprising that 26% of those deaths are preventable with educational content and compliance. In fact, patients are willing to utilize e-learning, and one in three patients reported that patient education is the most-used service on their in-room television. Smart room solutions offer an opportunity for healthcare systems to reduce the costs of printed educational material, while monitoring compliance and comprehension rates. Clinicians can assign and push education directly to patients to view on their in-room televisions, send reminders to complete assigned education and clarify questions patients may have. That can go a long way in helping increase patient adherence and better post-stay choices.

An integrated solution can significantly reduce printing costs, promote patient health literacy and reduce readmissions with better rates of adherence.