Capabilities Desired for Hospital Management System in India

Aravind Kejriwal recently directed the health officials in Delhi to develop a hospital management system of global standards. While hospital management systems have been in use for a while, there are currently no rules or regulations that lay down the standards for them in India. In the US electronic health records are regulated by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA Act).

In India, even though only the IT Act of 2000 applies for electronic health records, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare have recognized the need for electronic health records and periodically issues standards for them, for the purpose of promoting interoperability, technical innovation, participation by vendors and other stakeholders, and to support the evolution and timely maintenance of adopted standards.

Besides these guidelines, some other key features also play a key role in making a hospital management system best suited for the Indian healthcare sector. Let’s see what the specific requirements for a hospital management system in India are.

Aadhar as an identifying document.

According to the recommendations by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the electronic health record of a patient must have the provision to include UIDAI Aadhar number as the preferred identifier. In case Aadhar information is unavailable, the ministry recommends the use of a local identifier (as per the scheme of the healthcare service provider) and a photo ID issued by Central or State government. The system should have provision to accept a minimum of two IDs when Aadhar ID is not available. In the case of unidentified patients, a local identifier may be used, and confirmed identifiers inserted later when available. The government recently opened doors for integrating Aadhar with any software, but the software needs to meet certain criteria. While the recommendations are not implemented on a mandatory basis, it may become so in the future and therefore it is better to get software that follows them.

Support for GST

The Government of India recently passed the Goods and Services Act(GST) and many healthcare services come under its ambit. One of the important and commonly used aspects of hospital management software is billing. There are software that carries out the sole purpose of billing, while most hospital database management systems come integrated with it. With the implementation of GST, along with other service providers, healthcare providers such as hospitals and clinics are required to comply with the norms of GST. So it is important that a hospital management software is able to handle the billing according to GST norms, and integrated with GST filing software.

NABH accreditation

Formed in 2005, National Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers is part of Quality Council of India and is the principal accreditation for hospitals in India. NABH accreditation is becoming more and more important with the rise in medical tourism and patient awareness about their rights. Unlike ISO certification, NABH accreditation is specific to the healthcare industry and focuses on competency in terms of staff, equipment, premises, etc. For NABH accreditation of a hospital, the information management system of the hospital should meet the necessary criteria. This includes that the records of every patient are complete and accurate. It is necessary that the policy measures are in place to ensure the data integrity, confidentiality and security. A hospital management system plays a crucial role in this. An HMS that can safely manage the patient data in a safe and secure manner, and keep it updated in a timely manner can make this process much easier. The HMS must assure data redundancy and integrity and should be secure against data loss or theft, for the hospital to easily achieve the NABH accreditation. The HMS system must be capable of generating the data points that must be submitted for NABH accreditation.

Sending info to local government

Hospitals have to send certain information, such as birth rates and death rates, to the government periodically. This is required for keeping track of the population and related statistics. Sometimes during a disease outbreak, government health officials will need accurate data regarding the affected individuals to tackle the issue effectively. One of the primary functions of a hospital management system is the effective management of data. It should be capable of storing, retrieving and updating the information easily. With a system that can easily sort through the relevant data, the required data can be collected and sent to the health officials easily and in a timely manner. Without an effective system, the hospital staff will have to manually go through a mountain of data, wasting time and resources.

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What is a Clinic Management System?

Clinics have been popular with patients with minor ailments and also for certain specialties. They provide easy access to healthcare without having to go to hospitals. For a visit with a dentist or an ophthalmologist, most people visit a doctor at their clinics rather than spend time waiting at a hospital.

Other than specialized clinics, general health clinics in remote locations play a huge role in providing healthcare services where access to hospitals may not be easy. Primary healthcare centers across the country conduct vaccination camps, and regular health check-ups in regions that may otherwise suffer from a lack of healthcare.

Even though the number of doctors in a clinic may be low, there is a steady stream of patients and it may not be easy to handle them. It may not be easy to maintain the records of the patients in a small-scale clinic for long durations. A clinic management software or practice management software provides a suite of functionalities that makes it easy to manage a clinic.

A medical practice management system is used to manage the patients, the appointments, the doctors’ schedules, prescriptions, manage inventory, etc. It makes the otherwise difficult task of managing a clinic. These days, practice management systems come with Android and iOS apps with which the doctors can check their schedule, and patients can book appointments, manage prescriptions, etc, and may provide SMS or email notifications regarding appointments. They are more or less a lighter version of a hospital management system, with more focus on the clinic’s specialization.

Electronic health records

An electronic health record is one of the main features of these clinic management systems. They are used to store patient data in a digital format. Unlike paper records, digital records don’t get damaged over time. One of the most common problems associated with a patient record is that the data is not legible. During a doctor’s busy schedule, there isn’t much time to make accurate and legible records of every procedure performed. This leads to errors and difficulties in the future. Electronic health records provide an easy solution for this. In some software systems, there are templates for these health records with which doctors can make quick records without compromising on accuracy. These templates are often customized for a specialty making it much easier to create records, and this can be especially useful for clinics focused on a particular specialty. While some clinics use standalone EMR software, these most practice management systems come with an integrated EMR system.

Appointment management system

Booking and managing appointments are two of the most common problems faced by clinics. A medical practice management system makes it easy for a clinic to easily manage its appointments. Most clinics follow a token-based system for queue management, and this can become difficult when there are patients who have made appointments before. Also, it's not easy to provide clear timings for walk-in patients due to the appointments made. In a clinic management system, this can be solved with the help of integrated queue management, as a patient registers for an appointment at the clinic, the patient’s name is added to the day’s schedule without conflicts with patients who have made appointments earlier.

Dedicated app

An android or an IOS app that goes with the software can aid the clinic by making appointment bookings online. This will help the patients to make appointments easily at any time, even on public holidays when the clinic staff is not there to note down the appointments. With this app, doctors can also easily check their appointment schedules. The system is aimed at making a clinic more user-friendly.

Billing and accounting software

Most clinics use software just for the purpose of billing, and this increases the workload, requiring manual re-entry of the different procedures performed for billing purposes. With integrated billing, a clinic management system tracks the complete treatment of a patient and can be used to create financial records much easier than with stand-alone billing software. With this, the complete financial record of the clinic, such as expenditures, and returns, can be tracked easily.

Manage multiple locations

If you’re managing clinics at multiple locations, with the help of a single online clinic management software, all of them can be easily managed with a clinic management system. Data from the individual clinics can be viewed from a single system, often just by using a smartphone app. MIS or master information sheets of individual clinics can give you accurate information about the workings of your clinics.

How Technology Leverages Patient Centricity - Digital Healthcare Software

Imagine the following scenarios:

An electrocardiogram necklace that helps the physician track the patient’s health.

A chip in a pill is used for sending data to a web portal from the body and also the capability of your doctor to check the patient’s treatment progress.

A fetal monitoring device that observes the women remotely with pregnancies of higher risks.

The above are some of the visuals which can happen in the future of Healthcare and medicine. These types of unsetting technologies are redefining the patient experience and transforming outcomes in the clinics of the healthcare industry. Different data points show this effective modification. The life expectancy has increased to 60 years from 30 years between 1800 and 2000 at 1.5 years average rate per decade. The likelihood has now expected to be 90 years by the end of 2020 and at a 15 years per decade average or 10 times faster than that and this is what we call a Patient centricity world. In this blog, we will check out patient-centricity in-depth and how technology is used to enhance them.

What is Patient Centricity?

There are three significant aspects when it comes to defining patient centricity. Let’s check them below.

Making use of patient data efficiently for better treatment, monitoring, diagnosis, and R&D. At present, the evidence in the real world is reliably becoming significant, especially in the FDA providing new drug approvals. Correspondingly, the CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) is increasingly requiring providers to prefer measures and address outcome data via the execution of the meaningful use regime.

Patient Centricity also deals with improving patient experience and engagement to mold them into active attendants in every decision that is care-related and also enhances the excellent patient experience. The trend has now moved to human clinical trials, especially during the drug development’s advanced stages to engage patients actively.

Patient Centricity helps to enhance the outcome of the patient by shifting the focus to a population health management approach to individual encounters that targets interferences on particular cohorts and holistically at the patient risk.

Digital technologies can be influenced by Healthcare Software and Life science organizations to allow patient centricity in a way that creates excellent health outcomes, transform the patient experience, and the boom line, and also boost customer loyalty.

Data encourages Customer Insights:

Enhancing the patient experience takes more time than expanding technologies and also needs data-driven insights. Data is the only fuel that powers an enterprise’s patient-centric strategies. Device data, inventory data, customer data, systems data, etc. offer a 360-degree view which forms the substratum of patient-centric decision making, sound, and process optimization.

The ability to define more information and in-depth insight is vital for discerning the health journey of the patient and developing outstanding experiences. When you apply AI to the data wealth, the Healthcare and life science organizations can expand their understanding of the expectation and experiences of the patient. With this knowledge, they can enhance app features and interfaces, offer customized and individualized experiences, and streamline the process at every point along the journey of the patient.

The combination is Key:

All the technologies and digital data in the world will do little to enhance the experience of the patient in case they do not work in concerts. There is an entirely expandable digital platform that supports the complete journey of the patient, and this is mandatory to offer an outstanding experience.

Adequate health care and life sciences amid digital platforms are rooted in a simple, user-friendly, and intuitive design which makes it easy for both healthcare professionals and patients to communicate, share and access data along with various systems and also initiate actions. These management tools and platforms that include automation enable healthcare and life science enterprises to influence athletic abilities across the enterprises.

Support staff and clinicians can communicate with patients and colleagues in real-time and remote, the people in the group can reply to the requirements, collaborate rapidly on new services and products, and enterprises can more rapidly take advantage of the opportunities.

The healthcare and life science system which efficiently utilizes digital technologies and data to enhance the experience of the patient is OSF healthcare which analyzes and expands internal and external social, financial, clinical, and operational data to improve the organization and patients. This information is daily updated, enabling OSF to execute new processes and monitor real-time bed availability.

The truth is that OSF can enhance capacity management and efficiency, decrease readmissions by offering physicians a readmission risk score of their people each day and also gain the insight advantages coming to the system, allowing rapid discussions that focus on the patient requirements.

Bottom Line:

To achieve strong patient centricity, Healthcare and life science need to expand digital tools and platforms in a way that enhances processes and people to deliver the best goals as per the customer requirements. The technology requires to function as the best part of this type by connecting customer knowledge, facilitating data collection, empowering responsiveness, innovation, and more. It can also play an essential role in operationalizing feedback and measuring performance to make sure the strategies in customer-centric approaches are on track and also can be adapted continually to deliver new value.

By exploring the unique customer experience and organizing process, technology, and teams to deliver on the vision consistently, different health enterprises can lead in the present patient-driven market successfully.

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