Dealing with the Pressure Healthcare Providers are Having Now
Due to the high demands of their services that require precision and urgency, healthcare professionals carry a huge burden and pressure day-to-day. With COVID-19 wreaking havoc over the past year and a half, that pressure has just doubled and is continuously increasing. Healthcare is now more focused on COVID-related expenses, pulling back on newer and better equipment for facilities. Because of this sudden shift of focus, healthcare workers now find themselves in a vicious cycle: forced to do more with less.
With healthcare systems now working on tighter budgets due to this shift, the once consistent move for innovation, equipment upgrades, and replacements is forced to cease. In almost any medical facility, healthcare workers of any department are working longer hours due to the lack of innovation and technology, all while trying to improve patient outcomes. Hospital staff is faced with more demands while their equipment and tools lose reliability by the day. Certain measures adapted to reduce the risk of the virus spreading, such as having smaller teams work in their shifts just make it worse.
As the healthcare system is faced with new challenges because of the pandemic, old challenges remain. These obstacles have turned the goal of medical professionals of delivering the highest level of patient care into the ultimate challenge. This results in an imbalance in the healthcare industry—more demands, less supply.
Despite the ongoing challenges health workers face every day, TouchPoint Medical strives to make sure that new technologies built for healthcare are functional; that includes workstations and other tools. As we continue to find better ways to work, TouchPoint helps health workers by designing products with the end-user in mind, to provide ease of use and patient safety. TouchPoint helps medical professionals do their job faster, smarter, and safer to provide the best quality of medical care because happier caregivers equal happier patients.
In the words of Bradley Carson of TouchPoint, "Don't go into the solution until you understand the problem and its challenges," Different workflows require different solutions. In a hospital setting, when staff is given the right tools for their jobs, these can help greatly in maximizing workflow efficiency.
TouchPoint continues to innovate new solutions for healthcare workers and patients all over the world. Their new product, ProCare procedure carts are designed to be more than just a storage solution, as they can be configurable and flexible in many ways. The carts serve nurses and practitioners as their professional assistants, designed to give workers what they need, how they need it, and when they need it the most. At its most basic configuration, each ProCare procedure cart comes with pull-out work surfaces, tamper-evident seals for each drawer, and removable and interchangeable drawer inserts. The carts are suitable for emergencies and even COVID-19 cases. Each drawer has maximum flexibility without taking a cart out of rotation.
ProCare procedure carts have more than 50 accessories to make them multi-functional and built for almost any workflow. When enabled, security is never compromised to ensure safety for the equipment and information. Facilities can choose from no locks, up to different security mechanisms: standard key locks, electronic locks, and RFID. Individual drawers for locking and unlocking are based on credentialing, effective for more crucial applications such as anesthesia kits. ProCare procedure carts come in a wide variety of configurations, from basic isolation carts which can be used to store gloves, masks, and sanitizers, up to intelligent carts with power, high levels of security, traceable access, and audit reports.
It is human nature to dislike change. "We only change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing," stated Carson. Healthcare facilities such as hospitals and clinics have a series of challenges that have been temporarily resolved due to this fear of change. To make the transition easier and more tolerable for staff, it's vital to work with them directly and present the plan clearly, laying out all the changes on new products, technologies, and workflows. TouchPoint works closely with its customers to identify their needs, processes, and other points to improve. The company offers advanced integration services, taking the pressure off their customers and their facilities. TouchPoint also offers on-site success managers for every product installed, which allows health workers to focus on their primary goal: delivering patient care.
