Ideas That Work: Staff Communication

There are so many ways to communicate with staff — emails, phone calls, text messages, snail mail, intercoms, breakroom bulletin boards, you name it — yet none of those methods reliably relayed key information like scheduling changes, snow days, meetings and group events.

Our solution: a free smartphone app called GroupMe. It’s like a private chat room for our 25-person group. It works on every device — there are easy-to-use apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone — and you can even access GroupMe messages via text.

Our clinical director posts the schedule for the next week on GroupMe for all to see. It’s also great for last-minute scheduling changes, like the 3 cases our urologist wanted to add on New Year’s Eve. I used GroupMe to notify the team that some of them would need to come in on a scheduled holiday.

The great thing about the app is that if you have a question about something that was posted, you can always refer back to it. It’s right there in the app. You don’t have to call or email somebody back. One caution: use it prudently — for schedules or competencies or things of that nature. Try not to have a lot of back-and-forth, because then people get fed up and stop using it. Let’s be honest, a 25-member group chat can be extremely annoying.

Melissa Hermanson, RN, CASC, ACHE
Ambulatory Care Center
Vineland, N.J.
[email protected]