SONIFI Health expands support for hospital virtual care with telehealth partnerships and system optimizations

"Hospitals can choose the telehealth partner that's right for them and use the hardware and systems they already have in patient rooms," said Brian Nido, SONIFI Health's Vice President of Customer Success. "This helps hospitals maximize the value of their existing investments and create efficiencies that reduce costs."

Hospitals are finding that patients and staff prefer using virtual care via the in-room footwall TVs over tablets, carts and other hardware that require more manual work, device management and familiarity with associated technology.

"Patients of all demographics know how to use a TV—and they like the large display compared to a mobile device—so integrating virtual care into that system makes sense for the best and easiest user experience," Nido said.

SONIFI Health has been collaborating with their customers and telehealth vendors to enable multiple virtual care use cases that help clinicians work more efficiently and effectively, including remote patient consults and virtual nursing.

Often used to optimize workflows and alleviate staff shortages, nurses in a centralized command center can easily connect with patients via the interactive TV system for admissions, initial patient interviews, virtual rounding, patient observation via tele-sitting, and discharge prep.

Virtual nursing on SONIFI Health's platform also supports hospital patient education initiatives to improve post-discharge outcomes. The interactive TV integrates with EHR, education and other clinical systems to automatically assign education to each patient. The system prompts patients to watch the prescribed video education specific to their condition and then complete a comprehension survey, which is charted back into the EHR. If a patient were to indicate they didn't fully understand the education, an alert is triggered for virtual nurses to follow up and remediate knowledge gaps with patients.

SONIFI's platform can be configured to turn on the TV if it's not in use and automatically answer a telehealth call if there is an immediate safety need or if the patient is physically unable to accept the call. If the TV is already in use, SONIFI's system will pause programming and bookmark where a patient is, then automatically return them to the feature after the telehealth visit is complete. Nido said this is a patient satisfier and reduces the number of call button requests for non-clinical assistance.

"Nurses appreciate the zero-footprint approach, hands-free functionality, and ease of use of our system integrations," Nido added. "It allows them to focus on clinical care rather than interrupting their workflow for technical needs."

SONIFI Health tracks system use, reviewing data from telehealth encounters and features patients interact with. SONIFI Health then consults with hospital staff on how to optimize user interfaces and clinical workflows.

"We review the analytics dashboards with hospitals to see when and how they're using virtual care, alongside which aspects of the interactive system are most resonating with their patients, so we can work through best practices and use cases that make sense for them and their patients," said Nido. "Our customers are seeing great use and value in the units they're testing virtual care in. Many have plans to expand hospital-wide, then make it an enterprise standard with every bed throughout their organization. SONIFI Health is proud to support and enable this next step for smart hospital rooms, where technology is improving care while benefiting both clinicians and patients."

About SONIFI Health
SONIFI Health provides industry-leading interactive patient engagement technology proven to improve patient outcomes and staff productivity. The EHR-integrated platform is designed to anticipate the needs of patients and clinicians, infusing the principles of hospitality into care experiences. As part of SONIFI Solutions, Inc., the company supports more than 300 million end user experiences annually. Learn more at sonifihealth.com.

SOURCE SONIFI Health