A patient walks into a healthcare center and is attended to within two hours! Meanwhile, another patient with a similar medical problem visits a different facility, which takes forty-eight hours. While the variance could be due to several factors, it usually comes down to the efficiency with which healthcare centers administer their services.
In the recent past, many medical practitioners have streamlined their processes to optimize patient care and operational efficiency.
Streamlining healthcare entails identifying and eliminating repetitive tasks, such as scheduling patient appointments and updating medical records. It also involves forecasting seasonal influxes of patients and making requisite staffing arrangements, as well as minimizing diagnostic, medication, and surgical errors.
Streamlined healthcare processes help foster time management, minimize resource wastage, and enhance employee productivity. Ultimately, they ensure prompt disease diagnosis and treatment, improving patient outcomes.
Read below as we delve into the benefits of streamlining your healthcare services.
1. Enhancing Patient Care Through Digital Transformation
Digital transformation is the foundation of a streamlined healthcare system. Medical practitioners can adopt several innovative healthcare provider solutions, such as telemedicine, to maintain a competitive edge.
Estimates suggest that the global telemedicine market size will hit $107.52 billion in 2024, signaling a massive shift from the traditional in-person approach to patient care.
With telemedicine, patients don’t have to drive to hospitals or endure painfully slow queues in the waiting room. They can consult with medical practitioners, possibly get their ailments diagnosed, and even receive prescriptions from the comfort of their homes or workplaces.
As a healthcare provider, implementing telemedicine minimizes overheads by eliminating the need for vast in-person consultation rooms and a large hospital workforce.
One way to excel at telemedicine is by implementing remote patient monitoring (RPM) tools like weight scales, blood pressure monitors, and blood glucose meters.
RPM tools let you collect useful patient data remotely and transmit it electronically for further analysis. Most remote health monitoring devices relay feedback in real-time, allowing healthcare providers to make swift and accurate life-changing decisions.
Electronic health records (EHRs) is another major digital transformation to embrace in your healthcare practice.
EHRs support the systematic collection, storage, and management of patient health records. These systems improve data accessibility by availing critical patient information at centralized storage repositories.
Since EHRs minimize the need for manual paperwork, they also make patient data easier and cheaper to manage. The only challenge for healthcare providers is choosing a proper data storage platform, and that’s where the cloud comes in.
Cloud storage enhances data safety and accessibility. It also improves scalability and flexibility, as clinicians can retrieve data from any part of the world, provided that they’re duly credentialed.
Moreover, cloud storage boosts data accuracy by reducing human errors. Every bit of stored information retains its integrity, except in the unfortunate event of a breach.
2. Reducing Administrative Burden and Costs
Running a healthcare facility involves several administrative tasks, including (but not limited to) paying rent and utilities, payroll management, and equipment handling. These assignments require a significant investment in time and money.
Streamlining your healthcare services can reduce administrative burden and costs, ramping up your returns on investment (ROI). You can automate repetitive tasks like meeting scheduling by harnessing powerful technological innovations, such as artificial intelligence (AI).
AI-driven meeting scheduling assistants leverage potent algorithms to set up meetings based on your professional calendar. The tools then automate relevant tasks, such as sending meeting reminders to your staff or patients. Some can even summarize minutes, ensuring you never miss crucial details.
Other repetitive healthcare tasks that you can automate with automation software include billing and data management.
Automation tools free your staffers of the time required to manually handle routine assignments, allowing them to focus solely on improving patient outcomes. They also enable you to redeploy your employees to other critical departments in the facility while reducing manual errors due to human negligence or memory lapse.
More importantly, automating routine healthcare assignments reduces administrative costs and improves operational efficiency. By relying on machine-assisted rather than human-operated systems, you can quickly prioritize treatments based on the urgency of each condition.
To optimize AI’s capabilities, experts recommend deploying the technology alongside robotic process automation (RPA).
RPA is all about using bots to perform digital tasks typically handled by humans. Classic use cases include responding to common queries, scheduling meetings, collecting patient data, and locating nearby medical facilities.
Forecasting future dynamics is another way healthcare professionals can reduce administrative costs. Using analytics-driven data automation, providers can predict seasonal changes with near-pinpoint accuracy and adjust their operations accordingly.
3. Improving Interoperability and Data Sharing
Seamless data sharing and communication interchange is integral to the success of healthcare centers. However, both can only be achieved in a streamlined system.
Streamlining can enhance the interoperability between different equipment and systems.
An excellent place to start is by integrating EHRs into your operations. As mentioned, EHRs minimize the need for paperwork and associated administrative costs.
Besides EHRs, you could also implement digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) standards.
DICOM ensures the safe storage and seamless transmission of medical images, supporting the interoperability of hospital systems involved in generating and maintaining imaging data. With DICOM, you can seamlessly share useful diagnostic data within the facility and with external healthcare providers while maintaining its integrity.
Studies have shown that timely data sharing can improve patient outcomes significantly by allowing healthcare facilities to respond swiftly and accurately to medical situations. Besides, it’s necessary for seamless communication and collaboration across various departments.
DICOM also reduces overheads by preventing the duplication of tests, which is significant considering that procedures like genetic testing can cost up to $2,000 per test.
Final Word
Streamlined healthcare services provide critical advantages for clinicians and patients alike. By revamping hospital operations, healthcare facilities can improve patient outcomes, reduce operational costs, and better manage data sharing.
The best way to streamline your healthcare services is to embrace digital productivity tools powered by advanced technologies like artificial intelligence. This allows you to provide optimal patient care services and stay ahead in the competitive healthcare landscape.
