The rising wave of digitalization of hospitals and other health facilities cannot be overlooked. Indeed, health facilities that are slow to adopt digital processes may be on the losing end. The case for more digital-savvy hospitals is made stronger by the possibility of losing years of valuable medical records to disasters like fire or flooding. The rising profile of telemedicine and the ever-increasing need for more efficiency in hospital operations are more reasons to go digital. We go into some more detail below:
- Easier Adoption of Telemedicine
COVID-19 has changed how businesses and people interact. With most of the world observing stay-at-home orders for weeks, many businesses including those in healthcare had to find ways to go virtual. The adoption of telemedicine as a means to access healthcare from home became very popular. The hospitals that have benefited the most from these developments are digitally savvy. Digital platforms give you access to information remotely. This is beneficial as you are able to continue care remotely and deliver better care, simply because you have access to your patients’ electronic medical records.
- Higher Quality of Care
Running your hospital via digital platforms helps to reduce the time spent documenting, or searching for paper files. This, in turn, frees up more time for your team to focus on delivering quality care to patients. It also reduces waiting times often attributed to the search for patients’ paper files and other medical information.
- Better Integration of Operations
Digital hospitals have various departments under one internal network. This helps to increase information flow within the organization, leading to smoother and more efficient operations. Also, multidisciplinary management of patients is often made easier by the integration of hospital operations. All these culminate in better services by your hospital.
- Efficient Stock-keeping
Keeping an accurate stock of pharmaceutical supplies and other medical consumables can be a herculean task fraught with mistakes. With the digitalization of your hospital, errors and the losses that result from them can be reduced.
- Optimization of Services
The use of electronic medical records and the full digitalization of your hospital can help you tweak processes to achieve better results. This is because easily tracked data like the time spent per consultation, waiting time, most common cases seen, etc. can inform a restructuring of your hospital’s operations to increase efficiency and maximize output.
- Bonus Point: You Become Greener
When you go digital, you help to reduce your environmental footprint by reducing the amount of paper used in your hospital.
By Dr.Okonkwor Oyor C.
