Dive Brief:
- San Francisco-based Doximity has integrated with Epic’s Haiku mobile app, enabling physicians to access patient records and communicate with patients via their cellphones without giving away their personal phone number.
- Tapping the contact information in the patient’s chart opens the Doximity Dialer app, initiating a call. The patient’s phone displays the office, clinic or hospital number.
- Physicians can download the latest version of Epic Haiku with integrated Doximity Dialer for free from the Apple App Store or Google Play. More than 1 million patient calls were made with Doximity Dialer in the past three months, according to the company.
Dive Insight:
Communication is key to care coordination and achieving better patient outcomes, both components of value-based care.
In one recent study, access to a mobile app that allowed ambulatory breast reconstruction patients to submit photos and report information to physicians led to fewer post-surgery follow-up appointments and greater patient satisfaction.
In a June 2016 survey published by Salesforce, 61% of respondents who had been hospitalized or knew someone who had been hospitalized said that post-discharge communication with physicians could be improved. Sixty-two percent said they would consider virtual appointments with physicians.
Millennials, in particular, are looking for more convenient, less costly ways to interact with their healthcare providers. “Millennials are all about efficiency — they are able to access any information instantaneously due to mobile technology, and that’s where healthcare is going,” Steve Wilson, vice president at Accusoft, told Healthcare Dive in an interview last year.
More providers are turning to mobile apps to deliver care and streamline administrative tasks. Retail clinic operator One Medical, for example, lets patients email and video chat with physicians, transmit pictures, refill prescriptions and schedule appointments using a mobile app.