Empowering Clinics: How Cutting-Edge Tech Is Shaping Healthcare in India
April 8, 2021India’s healthcare industry is growing rapidly and reached $280 billion in 2020. Government initiatives like the Digital Health Ecosystem, Health Information System, and Medical Education are driving this progress. These efforts are accelerating healthcare tech with new innovations and technologies.
Numerous Indian health tech start-ups are actively working to solve issues of affordability, accessibility, and quality in 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.
If tests are required, the doctor prescribes them to the patient. The patient can either complete the tests locally and upload the reports on a shared online platform or visit the hospital 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) streamlines various hospital activities, from billing to inventory, and makes them paperless. Traditionally, staff conducted all operations manually, requiring a significant amount of time and effort. However, with HMS, most operations are now automated, resulting in higher workflow efficiency and an 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.
DICOM enhances imaging by standardizing the transfer of data, like CT scans and X-rays, between vendors. It allows for easy sharing and access to imaging reports among physicians and hospitals, leading to better 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 is designed to streamline operations for hospitals and make services accessible to 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