Hospitals and other healthcare facilities can benefit from an ongoing honing of their operational efficiency and streamline the healthcare services they offer. Reducing ineffective, time-consuming tasks and introducing modern technologies to support hospital staff members promotes a happier workforce and better patient care.
All healthcare facilities maintain contracts with various government and non-government agencies. They also need to maintain accurate contracts with other stakeholders, such as suppliers. Having a contract management system such as ContractSafe can minimize the number of resources you need to handle contracts and focus on other aspects of your clinic. Adapting systems that could streamline your healthcare facility’s operations can promote productivity and better quality of life for your workers and patients.
Here are various tips to help you improve efficiency in your healthcare facility.
1. Use RFID tags on your medical equipment
Patient care gets compromised whenever a nurse or a doctor doesn’t know where to find the right medical equipment. Besides, if the equipment is misplaced or lost, your healthcare facility may need to replace the lost device or rent a new one. This is an extra, unnecessary expense.
However, RFID (radio frequency identification) tags can minimize the instances of lost medical equipment. Note that some hospitals have 1,000 or more patient beds and many buildings on campus. Such facilities handle over 12,000 pieces of medical equipment. Such facilities need better equipment tagging system to prevent chaos in the facility.
RFID tag systems allow people to use a simple interface to determine the real-time location of the item they need. This reduces the time they need to locate the piece of equipment and devote more time to patient care. In a large healthcare facility, this equipment tagging system reduces the instances of chaos that could negatively affect the quality of patient care.
2. Have reliable healthcare answering services for timely responses
Many healthcare facilities have health outpatient services where people can go for nearly every medical-related service ranging from chronic illness management major and minor surgeries. In understaffed or small units of healthcare facilities, people who handle patients may also need to multitask by scheduling appointments and answering phone calls. This could lead to a significant drop in productivity levels.
The good news is that you can acquire medical answering services to ensure timely assistance. These services allow patients to reach knowledgeable operators instead of leaving voice messages whenever they want to get in touch with your health care facility. Also, knowledgeable answering service providers can engage with your patients even after work hours.
Sometimes, patients experience complications after surgery or may experience a potentially urgent situation that requires an expert’s guidance. By having an answering service, you can be sure that your patients will always find it easier to get in touch with your facility. These services allow you and other staff members to focus more on essential patient care rather than administrative tasks.
3. Use chatbots
Nearly all e-commerce companies use chatbots majorly to offer quick responses to frequent client questions. These chatbots can also be used in the healthcare industry. For example, Moorfields Eye Hospital (based in the UK) created a chatbot that allows patients to ask various questions about their health conditions. The chatbot also has accessibility features for patients with visual impairment.
Triage chatbots encourage users to describe their current symptoms and get reliable advice about the kind of healthcare services they need. It’s common to find people criticizing this technology, but it has granted people the ability to get personalized information that can be life-saving. Don’t be surprised to find that some triage chatbots make a health assessment within a few minutes.
When patients use chatbots, they could get help in understanding some of the symptoms they are experiencing and making a prompt decision about seeking medical help from a local health care facility. These patients can also get further assistance from pharmacies or take part in home-care measures until they can visit the primary care health experts. Remember, one way of streamlining day-to-day operations in your healthcare facility is by ensuring that your staff members have enough time and other resources to focus on tasks that matter.
Besides, chatbots could offer patients answers regarding the recommended ways to take prescribed drugs, the easiest way to book an appointment with a doctor, all the locations of reliable pharmacies closest to them. Keep in mind that the answers that patients provide are sent directly to the right health care. That means these experts will have a reduced burden and can spend more time on tasks that matter. It also ensures that the patients are getting better patient care experience.
4. Deploy electronic monitoring equipment
Healthcare facility employees understand that patient monitoring is an integral component of high-quality patient care. Keeping tabs on patients’ vital symptoms informs the healthcare provider if the medication and other relevant interventions are helping achieve the intended impact. Unfortunately, checking on all patients in a large healthcare facility can be challenging. This is the reason you should deploy a continuous electronic monitoring system in your hospital to provide reliable, 24/7 patient checks.
What most hospital management teams don’t know is that it’s now easier to implement such a system than before. This is because most patient variables can track changes easily. In the past, continuous electronic monitoring tech was majorly implemented in critical care units and places with specialized beds. But now, it is easy to implement a continuous electronic motor monitoring system throughout the entire facility.
There are also notification and alarm platforms that perfectly sync with continuous electronic monitoring systems to inform medical workers about shifts in a patient’s health condition that may require urgent action. Such a system can promote effective patient care and prevent medical mistakes that could cost patients their lives.
Summary
The advent of the internet and advancements of medical-related technology have made it easier for healthcare facilities to streamline their operations. Depending on the size of your facility, the nature of the healthcare services you provide, and your budget, you can implement some of the tips discussed in this article.
