Boosting Healthcare Staff Productivity With a Shared Inbox Dashboard

If your healthcare facility uses a patient engagement or front office automation platform, you may have noticed that all the information is organized around data.

Patient engagement and front office automation platforms exist to make your staff’s lives easier and your healthcare facility run more efficiently.

The problem? Nearly all platforms employ dashboards that are data-oriented, not action-oriented. So, while the software is still better than nothing, task allocation remains cumbersome and inefficient.

Let’s investigate why that is and what we can do about it.

Common Dashboard Issues

When opening a data-oriented dashboard, staff members see tabs or segments on patient referrals, refill requests, appointment requests, form lists, etc. All the data they could want is there, so what’s the problem?

Staff members don’t necessarily need all that information. Usually, they just need to know what tasks require their attention based on the data. Having to sift through layers of data to unearth which tasks await them wastes their valuable time and attention.

Organizing dashboards in this way is both inefficient and confusing. It often results in more incomplete tasks, requires extensive training, and leaves staff frustrated by the number of hoops they have to jump through to complete a simple request.?

With this inefficiency in mind, we took a cue from email inboxes and upgraded the Simple Interact design to include a shared inbox dashboard for task management efficiency.

Boost Efficiency With a Shared Inbox

Rather than organize around data, Simple Interact’s shared inbox takes an action-oriented approach. With a design that draws from email inboxes — a system everyone is familiar with — the shared inbox is used to automatically assign new tasks to the appropriate department or team member based on specific criteria.

The appropriate staff member receives a notification of a pending task, never needing to go sleuthing for the information they need.

For example, let’s say a patient submits a survey with negative feedback. The shared inbox can automatically notify the marketing team when negative comments are submitted so they can address the issue immediately.

Or, perhaps a patient expresses interest in an ancillary service presented as they fill out their intake forms. Someone on your team needs to know so they can take action! Our smart, shared inbox adds the information to the appropriate folder in the shared inbox, notifying the staff member who needs to take action.?

Because of its simplicity, automations, and familiar email-like organization, Simple Interact’s shared inbox even makes training new staff easier. Plus, since multiple people can view the inbox, staff members can easily assign tasks to one another, leave notes on items, and collaborate to resolve requests.?

What’s in a Shared Inbox Dashboard

Automated Task Creation

During a customer setup, we can define the conditions that trigger the creation and assignment of specific tasks. For instance, perhaps a practice wishes to take a certain action when its patients score high on a depression screening. We can have the system automatically create a task based on patient score data, add that task to the proper folder, and notify the appropriate staff members.

Specific Folders and Notifications

Similarly, the shared inbox uses a folder system to ensure team members only receive notifications of tasks pertinent to them. The marketing team only receives notifications from tasks in the marketing folder, and the billing team only receives tasks from the billing folder. And if they need to follow up on a task, they know exactly where to find it.

With this structure, you reduce time that’s wasted by team members handling information that doesn’t apply to them (scheduling staff having to sift through billing tasks, etc.).?

Enhanced Collaboration

The shared inbox also differs from traditional dashboards in enabling smoother collaboration. Staff members can both assign tasks to fellow team members and add helpful notes to tasks to facilitate more streamlined task resolution.

Integration With Other Messaging Tools

Our shared inbox integrates with your office’s other methods of communication, making it easy for staff to quickly contact patients or referral sources about the tasks at hand. Whether it’s a unidirectional email, an SMS alert, or a 2-Way SMS conversation, staff can send communications to a patient directly from the dashboard without adding another step to the process.

Metrics Tracking

Tracking metrics is key to improving any facility’s operational efficiency. With our shared inbox, you can see the number of completed tasks in a designated time period, the number of pending tasks, and even how many open tasks remain for individual employees. This information enables you to evaluate your resource allocation, track ROI, and identify weak points to shore up.?

Take Your Practice’s Dashboard Up a Notch

We’re called Simple Interact for a reason — we’re obsessed with simplicity and with making your life simpler. We focus on user experience to create technology that works for you, not the other way around.?

If you’d like to learn more, we invite you to schedule a demo to see how our shared inbox dashboard can transform your practice’s efficiency. To see the dashboard in action, complete the form in the footer below.