• Consolidates communication tools in a single solution

• Enables live telehealth diagnoses for a larger volume of patients

• Improves patient outcomes due to more efficient care processes

The organization uses this forward-facing approach to promote a work culture focused on collaboration. "We have providers based in regional emergency rooms and the Children's Hospital, nurses in our Transfer Centers, and other employees spread across hundreds of locations," says Susan Maksomski, Director of Children's Health, Southern Market of Hackensack Meridian Health. "Ensuring they're all collaborating is how we deliver the best patient care, and we need technology solutions that are both secure and easy to use." To do this across its wide network of facilities, the team adopted Google Workspace.

With Workspace, care teams can work together in real time on cases with colleagues across the network — using Google Meet and Google Chat for more immediate communication. They also have peace of mind that their valuable patient data is safe. "We can trust that our information is secure because Workspace has built-in privacy controls," says Maksomski. "It's encrypted, allowing us to safeguard patient information and protect the exchange of information between providers."

Beyond daily communications, Hackensack Meridian Health has transformed Google Meet into a telehealth solution. An overwhelming increase in the volume of pediatric Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), influenza, COVID, and other respiratory illnesses made it difficult for care teams to keep pace and make urgent, efficient care decisions. "Our physicians would receive calls from our transfer center to conduct a remote wellness assessment," says Dr. Harpreet Pall, Chief Medical Officer, Jersey Shore Medical Center and K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital, Academic Chair and Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. "But they couldn't see the children. They would have to gauge wellness based on vitals data."

The team realized they needed a telehealth solution to allow physicians to see their patients and make more informed decisions based on evaluating a patient's symptoms with their own eyes. "We knew we needed to give our practitioners a new tool, and we found that Google Meet met our needs from both a user experience and a security perspective," says Maksomski. "Integrating Google Meet into our IT program was seamless because we were already using Google Workspace."

Hackensack Meridian Health's IT team was able to set up tablets with a single-app mode, so they effectively serve as Google Meet machines. "The simplicity was important for us because we needed devices that served that specific communication need," adds Maksomski. "It made it easy for our teams to log into Google Meet with the same credentials they already use and know that their appointments will be in their Google Calendar."

With tablets in place, accepting providers are able to make real- time decisions remotely — even reviewing patients currently under watch in another emergency room — rather than making decisions based on written reports. By reducing time to care, these providers can recommend different treatment mechanisms before patients are transferred and begin care immediately after a transfer to a new hospital. "Using Google Meet ensures our doctors are able to make collaborative care decisions earlier and we can reassure our pediatric patients' parents that we have multiple physicians evaluating and treating their child," Dr. Pall shares.

Since integrating Meet into the patient intake and care process, Hackensack Meridian Health has seen improvements in both the care provider and patient experience. The organization received resoundingly positive feedback from care providers stating that the system has helped the team make more informed decisions faster. Pediatric patients' parents also shared that they felt more certain about their child's safety and more confident in the system's care program.