Technologies Shaping Hospital or Clinic Management in India
April 8, 2021India’s healthcare industry is rapidly growing at a tremendous pace and has nearly touched a mark of $280 Billion in 2020. Thanks to the various government initiatives such as Digital Health Ecosystem, Health Information System, Health System Strengthening, Medical Education, Development of Information Database, etc., that healthcare tech in India is progressing expeditiously with newer and better medical innovations and technologies.
Not to forget the efforts of numerous Indian health tech start-ups that are focused on solving issues related to affordability, accessibility, and quality healthcare services for the Indian healthcare system. From hospital management software to telemedicine online appointment apps, Indian healthcare has come a long way and further surges towards newer technological advancements in the medical sector.
This article will explore some of the technologies that are currently running and benefitting a plethora of hospitals in the healthcare system of India. Let us start!
Technologies Adopted by Physicians for Better Healthcare Practices
Following are some of the technologies that Indian medical physicians and hospitals are using to make the healthcare system more efficient:
Telemedicine
Telemedicine refers to the concept of providing medical services remotely to patients. Using tech devices, videos, emails, and smartphones, communication is established between the patients and the doctors. The patient then explains his medical situation or problem to the doctor, and the doctor diagnoses and treats the patient accordingly while sitting at an external location.
However, if any tests are required, the doctor will prescribe them to the patient. The patient can either get them done at their location and upload the reports on a co-shared online platform or go to the hospital itself for the prescribed tests. This concept of remotely treating the patients without the need for in-person visits to clinics is becoming extremely popular. It helps provide medical accessibility at different remote locations of the country.
Hospital Management System
A hospital management system (HMS) is a healthcare software used for streamlining the numerous activities of the hospital from billing to inventory and making them paperless. Traditionally, all the hospital operations had to be conducted manually, which took a vast amount of time and effort. However, with HMS, most of the operations are now automated, which results in higher workflow efficiency and improved patient experience.
A good hospital management software is efficient in managing the following operations:
- Appointment Management
- Staff Management
- Patient Management
- Facility Management
- Supply Management
- Laboratory Management
- Report Management
- Financial Management
- Inventory Management
- Support Management
Electronic Health Records
EHR is software that helps to consolidate a patient’s medical history and data to a digital format. The patient records are updated in the system so that they can be accessed in real-time by any authorized users. Typically EHR consists of medical history, allergies, medications, radiology images, treatment plans, and laboratory results of the patient.
Different departments of the hospital can access EHR records. Hence, when required by the physician, they will just open their system, enter the patient ID and access the information they want instead of waiting for files to manually come to them through non-digital mediums. Some of the benefits of EHR are:
- Enhanced quality of care.
- Accuracy in patient information.
- Increased interoperability.
- Higher efficiency.
- Increase in the revenue of hospitals.
- Better data security.
Digital Imaging and Communication
DICOM is an international standard protocol to communicate and transmit medical images and data. Its goal is to ensure higher interoperability of systems used to produce, share, store, send, display, process, retrieve, print medical images, and manage related workflows. With evolving technologies, the need for medical imaging has extensively grown.
A system such as DICOM will highly enhance the imaging system by standardizing a common method to transfer images and other crucial data such as CT scans, X-RAYs, etc., between different vendors. This will be useful in easy sharing and accessing imaging reports among different physicians and hospitals and will finally result in improved patient care.
CathLab Software
Cath lab operations and reporting are some of the most complex tasks of a healthcare system. Generating precise reports for the tests conducted are immensely important as it determines how efficiently the physician will diagnose a patient’s issue. Traditional cardiovascular information systems (CVIS) used in cath labs earlier had many shortcomings. They relied on variable content and could not produce reliable results as most of the time, the data used to get corrupt and become useless.
Now with cath lab software, the results obtained are more reliable. Besides, the software is efficient in successfully conducting and managing several cath lab operations with ease. A good cath lab healthcare software must have the following characteristics:
- Rich configurability with high data integrity.
- Ability to conduct clinical data analysis for better reporting and results generation.
- High interoperability to avoid data duplication.
- Set of coded algorithms and data to help medical staff with consistent cross-checks, reminders, and logical analysis to obtain the best results for the patient.
Where to Begin Your Search to Avail these High-End Healthcare Softwares?
Healthcare tech in India is forwarding ahead at a significant velocity and there are various medical tech organizations that have developed healthcare software for all kinds of medical needs. SoftClinic is one of the esteemed organizations that provides end-to-end clinic software solutions for healthcare management which covers modules such as laboratory, HR, pharmacy, accounting, and inventory management. Just tell your hospital’s requirements, and their tech-savvy experts will provide you with an optimal IT solution according to your needs.
Wrapping Up
All the healthcare software mentioned above are essentially designed to make the healthcare operations streamlined for the hospitals and the services accessible to the patients. Though there are still many challenges, the government’s acknowledgment regarding the necessity of technology to improve healthcare services is a big step forward for the progress of the Indian healthcare system. Hence, every medical organization must step ahead and join this movement by leveraging these technologies to provide better medical services for their patients and inherently grow as an organization.
Recommended Read: Best Hospital Software in 2022