Collaboration platforms may provide tools for working remotely among physicians, staff
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As physicians and their staff continue to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are several collaboration platforms and other organization tools that can help them stay connected now and as practices begin to reopen, according to a presenter at the American Alliance of Orthopaedic Executives Annual Conference.
Some collaboration tools that physicians and their staff can use that are more than just video conferencing include Microsoft Teams and Slack, according to Beth Ziesenis, CSP. Although Slack was the first in its category to move collaboration from email and shared documents to a chat platform, Ziesenis noted Microsoft Teams has recently made its tools free. She added that Google Meet is another collaboration platform that is free to users.
“In practices, I have seen marketing teams and accounting teams and coding teams silo themselves in a good way to have small conversations among them[selves] rather than the email blasts or trying to keep track of what is going on in those conversations,” Ziesenis said. “Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google – they all have varying ways of handling that correspondence.”
Skype and WhatsApp are phone applications that can be used when a video conference is not needed, but Ziesenis noted practices will have to weigh what they will be talking about on these platforms with what is HIPAA compliant.
After the COVID-19 pandemic is resolved and practices begin to open up again, Ziesenis noted two applications that can help with organizing paperwork that has accumulated are Google Photos and Microsoft Office Lens.
“Both of them use artificial intelligence to add information to your phone by just scanning it,” Ziesenis said.
She noted Google Photos will scan a document and import the text into a phone, while Microsoft Office Lens will also import the scanned documents as formatted documents that can be edited within Microsoft Word.
Although the tools for working remotely are readily available, Ziesenis noted that setting up a collaboration platform within a practice is going to be complicated and is going to take time.
“I am trying to get you past the idea that meetings and video conferences and tracking things on a spreadsheet are going to get you through the next phase of chaos as you bring your practice back up and you bring the patients back in and you get things swinging again,” Ziesenis said. “Plus, you integrate the people coming back to the office, getting you past the basic things you have been using and implementing something that is bigger that will carry you further.” – by Casey Tingle
Reference:
Ziesenis B. Teleworking: It doesn’t have to be this hard. Presented at: American Alliance of Orthopaedic Executives Annual Conference; May 1-4, 2020 (virtual meeting).
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Ziesenis B. Teleworking: It doesn’t have to be this hard. Presented at: American Alliance of Orthopaedic Executives Annual Conference; May 1-4, 2020 (virtual meeting).
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