Healthcare informatics has seen a boom in the past decade, with a massive emphasis placed on automation in hospital management. With increasing scope to streamline the functioning of hospitals around the world, constant technological advancements have brought in picture the advanced technology led Hospital Information Management Software (HIMS) Systems. Knowing its importance, whether you are part of a new or upcoming hospital, here is how Integrated Healthcare IT can help your hospital perform better.
Tackling bottlenecks
Common bottlenecks that can be usually seen to slow down hospital operations and growth, arise due to the fragmented and unstructured operations. This happens majorly due to unavailability of integrated systems.
These bottlenecks are –
- Hospital Information inconsistencies – Non-standardised data residing in different systems in unstructured formats.
- Real-time data unavailability – Inability to check up-to-the-minute information needed to keep healthcare systems in sync.
- Lack of standard and effective data authentication and access control mechanism.
- Inability to maintain essential healthcare data compliance like HIPAA and HL7.
- Unethical shared user-identities – Non-supportive shared identities of system users that create hindrance in streamlining inter-department communication and activity tracking.
Let’s look at the benefits
1. Centralised Repository with Formatted Data
The hospital and the HIMS installed in the hospital have the same goal. To achieve the highest quality patient care. Improving patient data access while placing an importance on improving the workflow leads to faster functioning of the hospital.
And Integrated HIMS architecture offers a Central Data Repository of all patients. This is where the data from all departments is stored and updated. Through smart integrations the HIMS collects and stores every information in pre-configured formats in one place making it easier to access on a single platform.
2. Improved Efficiency with Real-time Access to Data
With traditional ways of managing your hospital data, there are scopes for erroneous and haphazard storage of data, which can lead to high information retrieval time and unexpected delays in patient care. An integrated HIMS enables realtime access to patient data allowing doctors to deliver faster and improved treatment.
This is not just crucial for hospital physicians but saves immense time for the hospital management too. The system logs every information as and when it’s generated and allows the management to take a 360° glance at the hospital performance with complete digital data available at a click of a button. So you no more need to have a personnel to sift through files manually which is outright tedious and time-consuming.
3. Stringent Data Access Controls
How do you ensure your patient’s data privacy is not compromised whatsoever and the confidentiality of the hospital’s crucial information is maintained?
Before the advent of Integrated software for hospitals, there was no fool-proof way to tackle this challenge. Data authentication was greatly affected since access control mechanisms were far and few between.
An advanced integrated HIMS makes this process truly digital. With all the information saved digitally it allows for strict data security controls. The hospital’s management can configure data access to professionals as intended, and can also digitally track the information access activities against every user. This greatly helps in improving the staff accountability and reduces the chances of the mishandling and unwanted exchange of patient information.
4. Automated Compliance Adherence
Before the advent of Integrated HIMS, managing patient data was a more tasking process that led to the failure of appropriate patient data security.
The benefit of an integrated HIMS system is that it automates patient data security while creating secure channels of information flow and offering desired access controls. In order to ensure your electronic health information exchange and flow is secured there are software providers who offer HIPAA and HL7 compliant software. A hospital implementing an HIMS must look for these features if the country their business operates in has it as a mandate to be followed.
5. Streamlined Operations with Advanced User-activity Tracking
In the past, confidential patient data was easily accessible by anyone or everyone in the staff or had limited security checks. This and the unethical use of shared user identities, leading to multiple system users accessing files between departments using a single ID created issues in activity tracking and caused a stir in inter-department communications. Today, HIMS comes with a well-defined user-based roles and rules engine, complemented with an activity tracker that provides secure access to only those doctors and staff who are authorized by the management.
This greatly reduces the likelihood of tampering with the patient information, and more actively keeps in check the authorization of medical staff privileges. This is because of the streamlined inter-department communication architecture that has introduced the ability to update patient information without the scope of an error, in turn increasing the scope to improve patient care.
