When compared to other industries, the healthcare sector is improving, with the help of advanced technologies like the Hospital Management System (HMS). The current medical care computerization is being hampered due to a lack of a perfect interface between computers and medical care providers.

The two main issues that are commonly faced during implementation of an HMS are as follows

1. HMS implementation begins but the users start facing issues by the end

This is generally due to the inflexibility of the HMS software, a weak administrative will, and an inexperienced team for implementation.

2. HMS implementation gets completed, but only a single part of the functionality gets implemented

This is due to non-user-friendly software or unplanned and unconfigured executions.

Pre-Implementation Assessment:

All hospital administrators who implement the HMS software in their hospitals will be apprehensive that the process may end in a partial or complete failure and measures should be taken early in order to prevent such an event from happening. The software should be well assessed before being purchased by the hospital.

Software Assessment:

Choosing the right kind of software is one of the crucial and primary steps for getting the best results.

Earlier, all HMS Software had a single development cycle starting with a single hospital being computerized by a local developer for a single hospital. However, this type of HMS development is outdated. In such cases, there is a risk of the vendor providing software that was customized for a different hospital. Implementing them may cause various issues, and it may cost more in the long run. It's better to purchase the software from a firm, that specializes in hospital management software than getting any software company to design software for your hospital.

It's better to choose software that is easy to upgrade, scalable, and not hardware intensive. Cloud-based online software is better than offline software in these aspects. The providers could also easily fix any errors or bugs in the case of online software.

Another aspect to be considered is to check if the customization of the software is done primarily through programming code or by using master tables during implementation. Hospitals may require some form of alteration to the purchased software, so as to better suit their needs, and in the case of master tables, such changes may easily be made by the hospital itself. In the case of online software, this may not matter much, as maintenance and support are provided by the software provider.

Vendor Assessment:

Only a few vendors of international or national repute can be trusted easily. A drawback with a large vendor is that they don’t always accommodate the requirements of small hospitals. In the case of small vendors, the hospital administrators may have to do thorough research to see if they are trustworthy.

An important aspect to be known is whether the current implementation team will be available during the entire implementation cycle. Checking the attrition rate of the software company, and discussions with other hospital administrators may give you an idea about this.

Visits to Hospitals with Hospital Management Systems:

A well-planned visit to hospitals where the software has been implemented will give you insights on the performance of the software, the support provided by the vendor, and if the vendor has achieved all the goals that were initially planned. To get a good picture, it's better to visit hospitals like your own, in terms of capacity, number of specialties, and number of departments, as well as hospitals that have implemented the software that you are considering. This will give you an idea, not only about the trustworthiness of the vendor but also about how well the software will be suited to your hospital.

Discussions with hospital administrators who have previously implemented the software in their hospitals will also give you good insights on the possible difficulties you may face during the implementation process, and on how to overcome them.

Getting your Hospital ready:

Problems may arise in HMS implementation, due to issues within the hospital. The lack of a systematic and uniform workflow within all the departments in the hospital may make the implementation process difficult. Information regarding the various equipment used, tests performed, schedules of doctors in different departments, etc must be readily available so that it can easily be imported into the system.

An important aspect is the cooperation of the various end-users, that is, the hospital employees. They have to provide enough awareness of the usefulness and importance of implementing the HMS software. The implementation may put additional stress on the employees until they get used to the system, and this may hamper the efforts of the hospital administration.

HMS implementation begins with a pre-implementation phase, in which software is chosen and the hospital prepares for the change, followed by the implementation phase and the post-implementation phase, in which the final kinks are ironed out. The whole process could be made smooth with a thorough pre-implementation phase.

Choosing software that is well suited to your hospital, having clearly defined workflows, and complete information about the working of the hospital will help you to easily implement the HMS in your hospital. Having a good team, and ensuring the cooperation of the hospital employees would help the hospital achieve its goals with the HMS.

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Our present modern information system makes use of computers for the execution, each of them connected through an optimized network. Healthcare is the most critical aspect of our society, and many health care providers face challenges to offer practical and active services to patients.

Considering a multispeciality hospital, many people enter and exit the hospital in a day and maintaining their records safely is tedious. To reduce this type of burdens and to manage the financial, hospital administration and clinical aspects, Hospital management system came into existence.

Apart from that automating your hospital's processes and implementing them cannot be done too easily, you need an efficient hospital management system to take care of everything that is happening around the labs and hospitals.

If you are ready to implement or go with the hospital management system, make sure you follow these things before making it useful in your hospitals or labs.

Processing Speed & Results
Cost Effective
Reduction in Errors
Data Security & Retrieving Ability
Improved Patient Care
Quality & Compliance

Processing Speed and Results:

Hospital management system follows the standard operating procedures, and there are no chances for deviation to happen in any of the effective HMS systems. With the implementation of HMS in your labs or hospitals, you will be able to treat patients with a better way and accessing their real-time reports and other information regarding the patients, and their past clinical data and more can be done quickly and lead to best patient outcomes. Hospital management system makes employees work more accessible and improve the speed of the complete processes for better results.

Cost Effective:

HMS information system helps to track and control finances, reduce leakages as well as reduce manual work and therefore there is no requirement of the higher human workforce.

Hospital management system helps to cut down the manual work done by humans in the hospitals especially for the peoples who take care of the record and documentations safely. Hospital management system helps in reducing the human resources costs as most of the work is automated.

Cut down the cost related to storage and other associated requirements. If your hospital is entirely HMS implemented, then your hospital will go paper-free one, it's enough if you maintain the mandatory documents and other related ones in your hospital to comply with the regulation standards.

Reduction in Errors:

Hospital management system will help in reducing different types of errors that made through interventions like missing billing, operational failure, clinical errors, cost leakages, missing appointments and much more.

Every process on the hospital management system are automated, and there are plenty of tasks provided to the software to perform without the human intervention as well as accurately, this reduces the error significantly.

For example, An IPD patient final bill amount can be easily generated if your hospital enabled of Hospital management system as his reports and other samples bill are already billed and safe under the Patients unique Hospital ID, and therefore the billing executive needs to generate from the system and provide the statement to the patients.

If your hospital is not HMS enabled then you need to go with manual entries which involves too many human errors, so preferring HMS will make your billing section easier, faster, accurate and more transparent.

Data Security and Retrieving Ability:

In a Hospital management system, they are one of the cloud-based software where everything gets interlinked, and therefore there are no chances for breaches to occur as they have high data security.

Evidence-based medicine requires the retrieving ability as well as data ability mandatorily, and this easily achieved through a Hospital management system. If you have Hospital management system on your hospital, then you can easily access the operational, clinical and financial data of your hospitals.

Improved Patient Care:

Enhanced work efficiency and improved patient data access mean faster and better clinical decisions. A clinician orders the solution to implement once he gets the diagnostic report on his hand, so its necessary to have speedier support for receiving the reports rapidly. All departments in the hospitals are interconnected and integrated with this automation, and this enhances the patient care quality as well as the hospital turnovers.

Quality and Compliance:

Every hospital should send a report of birth, and death occurred, their reasons and related solutions to the NABH accreditation monthly. Its difficult to arrange them manually so preferring the best HMS helps you to send the reports faster and at the right time frame.

Every report is monitored and managed in the Hospital Management System carefully and efficiently for accurate results.

Everyone prefers HMS for their hospitals for coordinated and rapid care, reduced costs, reduced waiting time and readmission, enhanced patient safety, and clinical care.

Any other essential benefits of implementing a hospital management system in your clinics? Let us know through the comment section below.

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Our present modern information system makes use of.....

HMS covers three aspects of managing the hospital; they are Operational, Financial, and Clinical Aspects. If you look at the Doctor Management System, most of the software covers only operational and financial aspects like billing, inventory management, patient registration, scheduling, and workflow management. When evaluating HMS software, hospitals give much importance to operational and financial aspects and less importance to clinical records.

This blog discusses the importance of focusing on clinical records, otherwise known as Electronic Medical Records (EMR) in HMS.

What is EMR?

EMR is called Electronic Medical Records (EMR), which include information regarding the patient's medical history and treatment as discrete medical practices possess them.

When considering individual patients, the EMR will include information like patient contact information (emergency contact), physician orders, allergies, insurance, and other billing information, surgical notes on various medical progress, prescriptions, vitals like weight, height, body temperature, BMI (Body Mass Index), etc., release information forms, medical facility appointments on past and future, treatment plans and Discharge summaries, etc.

EMR constitutes different characteristics considering the medical practices, which include their functioning system to all other medical care procedures.

Apart from the benefits of the software platform, the Electronic Medical Record Systems also provides much other prominent information for care.

Coordination procedures connecting reception information and transfer departments, the software, personal use rules of the organizations, training, and education established plans are some of the well-established components of the Electronic Medical Record System.

Benefits of EMR for the Medical Practice

Below are some of the advantages of Electronic Medical Records to Medical Practices.

Capable of quickly transferring patient information from one department to the other.
The digital record environment helps to save much space.
Through EMR, you can quickly enhance the number of patients for improved productivity and workflow of the patients daily.
Medical practice with reduced errors leads to a vast improvement in patient care and result management.
The operational cost is much reduced with EMR, especially for expenses made for overtime labor and transcription services.
With EMR, electronic medical records can be customized and are scalable.
The capability of providing advanced clinical documentation and e-prescribing.
The efficient and accurate process of billing with their advanced healthcare practices.

What Benefits does EMR provide for the Patients?

Improvement in Patient Treatment and other Diagnoses of diseases.

Rapid decision-making responses and patient care from different medical professionals assigned to individual patients. No chances for significant errors in a patient health record.

What are the Essential Core Capabilities of the EHR?

The Electronic Medical System indulges seven different core capabilities, namely.

Health Information and Data:

With EHR, you can quickly access essential information about the patients, their allergies, diagnosis of their diseases, medications, lab test results, etc., which provides a clear idea for the custodian or minder to decide on the treatments promptly.

Result Management:

People who take care of the patients are provided with multiple settings regarding patient care. This will undoubtedly improve the effectiveness of the care and safety of the patients reliably through quick access to past and new test results.

Decision Support:

The computerized EMR system makes use of Prompts, reminders, and alerts for various benefits like providing complementary clinical practices with improved compliances, possibilities of regular screenings, and capability of taking other vital methods, natural treatment, and diagnosis and also helps to identify the possible interaction of the drugs, etc. precisely.

Electronic Connectivity and Communication:

Improved care continuity, enhanced timeliness of the treatment and diagnosis of diseases, reduced events frequency, etc., are some of the critical benefits of the Electronic Medical System for secure, efficient, and accessible communication between patients and providers.

Patient Support:

The various tools provided for the patients, like easy access to their health records anytime, interactive health table and patient education, self-testing and home monitor methods, etc., help to keep their diabetes and other chronic diseases under control.

Reporting:

Electronic Medical System has plenty of advantages indulged in the HMS. One of the critical reasons 90% of clinicians choose EHR is their reduced human errors.

As a whole, EHR security needs a fine tune in case of the substance abuse records and terms of the behavioral actions. By doing so, they can calculate the patient's body conditions efficiently. E.g., if nurses and physicians have every minute detail regarding their patient's history at their fingertips, there might be no massive chances for critical care and emergency treatment.

The detailed history of the patients will help in finding a new healthcare provider through the patient's current health state and the medical record. They also support exchanging patient information with healthcare facilities if the patients have not requested them.

Integration

Electronic medical record (EMR) is not a standalone system. Instead, it is a complete ecosystem with several integrations, making it a holistic solution for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, care, and management of medical conditions.

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Why your HMS should include El...

HMS covers three aspects of managing the hospital;.....

When searching for software, almost everyone looks for free ones. If you simply type in the name of any random software, you’ll probably see a google autocomplete suggestion “free download”. In some cases, it does make a lot of sense in using free software. Why pay for something when you can get it for free?

Searches for downloading free EMR software have increased with government legislation mandating their use in hospitals. Let us look into why this is a bad idea.

If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product

As a general rule, nobody ever gives you something for free. As economists would say, “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product”. In the case of most free software, this is the case. Recently it was found that most of the free antivirus apps in the Google Play store actually did nothing. Their purpose? Probably to collect data from your device. This may not affect an average person very much, but if you’re concerned about privacy, you should probably stay away from these software. And when you’re dealing with a hospital management software, this is a key aspect. Data security is a very important aspect especially when you handle patient data. A data leak, however small has the potential to damage the reputation of your hospital.

Lack of accountability

A hospital management system has to have certain qualifications that assure you that a particular software can fit your needs. When you purchase a software, it is possible for you to verify if these software fit the criteria. But when you download a software for free, there is no way for you to be sure if these software fit the criteria. And since there is no monetary transaction between you and the software provider, it will be difficult to hold them accountable.

The lack of accountability will be an issue if the software faces any glitches. If the software crashes, customer support is not provided for the system, and you will be on your own. A software glitch in a free android app may be annoying, and will not cause any huge problems even if is not resolved. In case of a hospital, the software handles sensitive patient information and a software glitch can compromise this data, and with no tech support from the providers, it can cause a lot of problems.

Upgrades? Nope

As government regulations change, and as the technology improves, you may face the need for a better software. If you’re relying on a free software for very important tasks, such as managing your hospital, you may find yourself stuck with an old software. Free software rarely provide any upgrades for long durations. And when you want an upgrade, you may find yourself searching for a new software, and you’ll have to import the existing data into the new software which will require additional resources.

The story of the open source software

A commonly trusted free software are the open source software. Ubuntu is an example of an open source software. They are usually made by developers across the world, and their source code is available for free, and you’re free to change or modify the code as you wish. Since the source code is available for everyone, it is unlikely that the software can have malicious intents. And as long as the developers continue to improve the software, it will remain up to date with the required features. Open source software appears to offer a very good deal, and they do, in the case of most of the software. But in the case of a hospital management system, it is never a good idea to use an open source software. This is because of a combination of reasons discussed above. First of all, there are no hospital management software with the kind of community that a software like Ubuntu has. If you face any issues, you’re on your own. In the case of popular softwares, there may be forums in which users can discuss issues, and they may get resolved. But for a hospital management software, there are no such forums, and when you’re managing a hospital, you cannot afford to wait for a solution that may never come. And as we discussed, updates will be available for open source software only as long as the developers are working on the project.

What about the free trials?

If you have been looking for free HMS downloads, you may have come across many SaaS healthcare software companies offering lite or trial versions of their software for free, or maybe the complete version of their software, but for a limited time period. These software are generally secure and will be much more robust than software from other software providers. They may even offer regular updates. But remember that these trial versions are just for that. They will be severely limited in their capabilities, and you will definitely have to upgrade at some point. And the providers may not provide tech support if you’re using the free version. But they do provide an easy way to evaluate a software and if available, they serve as a demo for the complete version.

Lack of customization

Generally across hospitals, or even across departments, there is no uniform workflow. Each department head has their own workflows, and this is the reason why hospital management systems are highly customized. However such customization is not at all possible in a hospital management system, and if implemented, could affect the functioning of the hospital and may prove to be counterproductive.

To know more about hospital management software, visit MocDoc Hospital Information System.

Why you should never download ...

When searching for software, almost everyone looks.....

Hospitals are rarely a single department entity. They usually span multiple specialties focusing on different treatment areas, such as pediatrics, neurosciences, gynecology, etc.

There are also various departments taking care of the day-to-day running of the hospital, such as maintenance, accounting, billing, operation theatre, and management. Each of these departments consists of many people carrying out various tasks, ranging in complexity from brain surgeries to fixing overhead lamps.

A single organization may have hospitals across multiple locations, making it difficult to manage them all. A hospital management system helps you manage the enormous complexities of efficiently managing the hospital sustainably.

Even though hospitals span several different areas, in the beginning, it usually involves only a few departments and just the primary number of people required to manage them all.

In such a case, a simple management system with the capacity to deal with relatively less data would work. But as a hospital starts growing, incorporating more specialties and treatment facilities, this system may not be able to deal with the massive flow of data.

A hospital management system could make this process much faster and easier.

As the number of departments and employees grows, the management system would also extend to accommodate the conditions created by the growth, thus aiding the development of the hospital instead of being a hindrance.

Scale up - The role of a cloud-based system

A cloud-based online system has many advantages compared to an offline system regarding scaling up. Instead of making changes in all systems in a hospital network, the differences would have to be made only by the software providers. They could easily be updated to add more departments and employees without reinstalling the updated version in all the systems in a hospital. And since the software and its interface remain the same, there is no need to allocate extra resources to train the users.

A cloud-based system would also be much more efficient in the case of hospitals in multiple locations. The data generated from all the hospitals run by the same organization could be integrated and analyzed to improve overall performance. As new sites come up, the software is updated, and the existing management network can seamlessly integrate without additional training.

This option would allow for better purchase decisions, as requirements for the entire chain of hospitals could be understood and remedied in bulk, thus helping make much better business transactions and improving efficiency for the whole network.

Resource management and reduction of wastage :

A sound hospital management system would also help prevent unwanted waste of resources. Efficient management of the various equipment and disposables inventory would cut short the resources otherwise wasted. In scaling up, there is usually an increased wastage of resources due to purchasing excess materials to prevent a shortage. With an efficient system, such wastages could easily be detected and avoided. This option could provide a smooth scale-up from a small hospital to an extensive network without excessive spending.

Scaling up - Understanding the data generated :

A common problem associated with the scaling up of any system is the overwhelming amount of data generated from the various subsystems. Every bit of data has to be analyzed and compiled in a manner that is easy to understand to make correct decisions at every corner. A scale-up could be a headache for a hospital with a large amount of data generated without an adequate system to manage the data.

An efficient hospital management system would make this entire process a cakewalk by managing the data generated in real time smoothly and quickly. In a sound hospital management system, all the data from the various departments regarding all the matters from procurement of materials, human resources, and energy requirements to billing, accounting, and inventory management is compiled and represented in a meaningful manner.

This leads to a quicker and easier decision-making process and, therefore, a more accessible, smoother, and efficient scale-up.

Management of the extra human resources required for scale-up :

The efficient running of a hospital requires that all the stakeholders play their roles, and to enable this; they should be able to manage their work quickly and intuitively. A sound hospital management system allows smooth work delegation and easy access to the information required for the task.

For example, it should allow a doctor to enter information regarding a patient and their treatment regime and enable the pharmacist to track the inventory quickly. With an efficient system, it would also be able to evaluate the work done by them. Such easy management of the entire workforce, without causing any hindrance to them, but help them with this, would enable the hospital to grow.

In short, a sound hospital management system would make it easier to scale up the hospital network by efficiently managing the resources, avoiding waste, creating an efficient workforce, and better data management. Such a system could provide hassle-free patient care, making everyone’s work much more manageable.

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