Physician Executive Journal Highlights Physician-to-Physician Communication

PerfectServe helps reduce sentinel events caused by clinical communication gaps

Knoxville, Tenn. (March 15, 2012) — In a recent article by Diane Shannon, M.D., published in the January/February 2012 issue of the Physician Executive Journal (PEJ), the importance of direct communication between physicians is highlighted as an essential ingredient for effective care coordination.

The article, entitled “Effective Physician-to-Physician Communication: An Essential Ingredient for Care Coordination,” quotes Lon McPherson, MD, senior vice president of medical affairs and chief quality officer at Munroe Regional Medical Center as saying that “lack of direct communication between physicians leads to delays in patients receiving the assessment and treatment they need.”

Also included in the article are thoughts from Dr. Timothy B. Bullard, chief medical officer at Orlando Health. Dr. Bullard stated root cause analyses at his organization demonstrated that it is common to “uncover a gap in communication about a critical piece of information” which ultimately led to the adverse event in the first place.



According to Bullard, in many instances a direct conversation between physicians could have prevented that communication gap and potentially averted the adverse event.

If a hospital selects a sound clinical communication delivery platform, such as PerfectServe, it can reduce the occurrence of sentinel events often caused by the gaps mentioned in the PEJ article. By eliminating handoffs and speeding the delivery of critical lab values, PerfectServe creates greater opportunities for physician-to-physician and nurse-to-physician communication. This allows information to route faster, with greater accuracy, reliability and safety resulting in improved care coordination.

“The current processes found in most hospitals today, or lack thereof, have only widened the communication gap,” said Terry Edwards, president and CEO of PerfectServe. “With a solid platform that gives doctors the opportunity to selectively filter and control how they receive clinical communication, it makes the practice of medicine more efficient while improve care coordination.”

About PerfectServe
Advancing care coordination across the continuum, PerfectServe's intelligent clinical communication platform makes it easy to connect clinicians — and push relevant clinical information — to the right physician at the right time, in the precise way each physician wishes to be reached. Based in Knoxville, Tenn., PerfectServe processes more than 35 million transactions annually, connecting more than 20,000 physicians in health systems and medical practices across 154 markets in the United States. For more information go to www.perfectserve.com, visit Twitter, or call 877-844-7728.