How Technology Can Mitigate Patient Anxiety in Medicine with Dana Oaks KLAS Insights

Dan Czech and Adam Cherrington are joined by Dana Oaks, Professor in Residence Healthcare Administration at Utah Valley University.

Dana comes from a lineage of healthcare providers but decided he didn't want to go to school to be a healthcare provider. Instead, he found a meeting of business and healthcare that he was interested in. After earning his MBA and MHA, he has been chief in multiple organizations around the country.

Dana discusses his experience with Telemedicine during the pandemic and working in a largely rural area that made getting care to patients incredibly hard. These health systems faced incredible challenges including personnel shortages, funding shortages, and technology accessibility shortages. His organization had to figure out how to mitigate anxiety and burnout in small areas. He learned just how critical Social Determinants of Health is to getting people care. This like proximity, ability to travel, access to technology, and education determine the care patients get.

There is a difference in doing the right thing clinically but the wrong thing in communication in healthcare. Communication de-escalates both health crisis and anxiety crisis and reducing anxiety helps caregivers give better care.