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Tip of the week: Use simple technology to improve medical staff communication

Medical Staff Leader Connection, April 22, 2009

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Medical staff and hospital leaders need to communicate with multiple stakeholders: The medical staff, hospital administration, the governing board, and the community, to name a few. Communication—especially in this 24/7 age of instantaneous news—must be timely, accurate, and transparent.
 
Consider some of these communication channels for your organization:

• Publish a monthly physician and/or internal hospital newsletter. Distribute it in the medical staff lounge and send it to all physicians’ offices via e-mail or fax.
• Develop a medical staff Web site and continuously update it with news and other items of interest.
• Send e-mails regularly to key stakeholders informing them of recent decisions
• Send letters that address timely issues and need immediate input from medical staff or hospital members. Print these letters on brightly colored paper, or, if faxed or e-mailed, label boldly as a high priority item. Text messaging and instant messaging are useful adjuncts for this purpose as well.
• Host Webcasts, podcasts, and audio conferences to inform physicians and hospital staff of key issues and decisions, especially those physicians who spend little time in the hospital.

This week’s tip is an excerpt from the Sailing the Seven Cs series, written by William K. Cors, MD, MMM, FACPE, CMSL. The series appears each month in Medical Staff Briefing.

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