d Innovative Tech: Enabler of Modern Hospitals – Napier Healthcare

Innovative Tech: Enabler of Modern Hospitals

The time is now for healthcare providers to rethink their IT strategy and invest in the right system for their facilities.

Here are some of the most pressing challenges facing hospitals today.

Financial issues – There is an urgent need among hospitals to reduce their operating costs and streamline their business processes. They have to be able to manage budget cuts and still find a way to make necessary investments in infrastructure and technology. With the increasing volume of bad debts, hospitals also need to find a solution for more efficient collection and settlement methods. Advancements in supply chain management have diminished the need for holding inventory, thus creating a demand for consignment inventory. The hospitals need to be able to handle these changing industry trends in order to reduce their cost.

Employee efficiency and productivity – As patient populations and their associated healthcare needs grow, developed and developing countries alike are struggling to source, attract, and retain adequate numbers of trained, qualified healthcare professionals, especially physicians and nurses. There is a need to increase employee productivity efficiently instead of burdening them with overtime.

In addition, insurers, managed care organizations, and health plans are pressuring hospitals, physicians, and
other care providers by reducing or constraining the growth in reimbursement rates, and threatening to not pay for care that is unsafe or unnecessary. In order to survive, these providers must find ways to improve efficiency by reducing their resource, administrative and labor costs without sacrificing care quality.

Patient safety and quality – Healthcare-associated infections or infections acquired in healthcare settings are the most frequent adverse events in healthcare delivery contexts worldwide. Antibiotic resistance, personal protective equipment protocols, health IT issues, medication errors, workforce safety, transitions of care, diagnostic errors are some of the major issues faced by the hospitals regarding patient safety. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), out “of every 100 hospitalized patients at any given time, 7 in developed and 10 in developing countries will acquire at least one healthcare-associated infection.” Hospitals need to redesign care processes around the culture of quality/safety and thus promote greater patient satisfaction. Compliance with accrediting organizations such as JCI and HIPAA is also becoming necessary to ensure quality.

Compliance with government mandates and standards – Policies and laws surrounding healthcare and medical services can be quite complicated and are constantly changing. Hospitals and healthcare providers have to ensure that policies and procedures are up-to-date, available and effectively communicated throughout the organization. They have to be compliant with a number of rules and regulations governing everything from patient privacy to outcomes from procedures. Noncompliance with regulatory standards can lead to a disruption in operations, poor quality of care, safety issues and substantial fines.

Meet the cure

Challenges like these require hospitals to rethink their processes and the approaches they take to deliver care and cures to their patients. It is imperative that the hospitals achieve operational excellence as a solid and necessary base to further excel in clinical and service quality.

Fortunately, the vast majority of healthcare organizations have long recognized the value of IT in helping them overcome their many challenges and yield great results. Where they may find some difficulty before taking that first step onto successful digitalization of their operations is in making the choice of technology, system and provider.

Hospitals need technology partners with a deep understanding of the complexities of the constantly changing healthcare environment and the technologies required for them to meet their operational and strategic objectives. Napier Healthcare Solutions understands that and has continued to build on its more than 20 years of success in developing and implementing healthcare information systems for hospitals of all sizes and specialties across the globe. It helps clients anticipate and take on the challenges of providing healthcare in the 21st Century and achieve real transformations that deliver higher ROI and healthier patients.

Hospitals need technology partners with a deep understanding of the complexities of the constantly changing healthcare environment and the technologies required for them to meet their operational and strategic objectives. Napier Healthcare Solutions understands that and has continued to build on its more than 20 years of success in developing and implementing healthcare information systems for hospitals of all sizes and specialties across the globe. It helps clients anticipate and take on the challenges of providing healthcare in the 21st Century and achieve real transformations that deliver higher ROI and healthier patients.

 

— By Harshita Parikh, Product Management, Napier Healthcare Solutions

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