Health
8 Types of Software Improving Healthcare Facilities
Technology, in all industries, is continuously evolving. This evolution is especially critical in the healthcare industry, where technological advancements often mean saving more lives and increasing the quality of life for those living with health conditions. The path is wide open for technology and quality healthcare, from surgical robots to new medications and pharmaceuticals.
However, the best tech has to offer in the healthcare industry doesn’t stop at what machines can do, but how they can help human professionals do their job better. For example, administrative systems help physicians provide better care for their patients, limit misdiagnosis, and save time. Healthcare facilities looking for locums providers can also use modern staffing platforms to quickly connect with qualified professionals and maintain continuity of care. For those looking for tailored medication services, it might help to search for a ‘specialty pharmacy near me‘ to discover convenient care options aligned with healthcare workflows.
Equipping smaller clinics and facilities that have fewer resources with such technology will take time, but it’s far from impossible. If you own or manage a healthcare office, you can start with software packages or cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) options that focus on efficiency and accuracy, which in effect can raise your bottom line and allow for further development. Today, some of the most common and most affordable healthcare technology includes the following software types.
- EHR and EMR Software
Electronic health records (EHR) and electronic medical record (EMR) software hold your patients’ records digitally and help with better file organization and retrieval. Both software types make it easier to reach a conclusive diagnosis for the patient as the healthcare provider is less likely to miss critical parts in their patient’s medical record. It also makes it easier and faster for doctors to prepare for each appointment they have scheduled in one day.
The difference between the two software systems is that EHR options, such as NextGen EHR software for healthcare, hold the patient’s current information, charts, and diagnosis. EMR, on the other hand, contains a patient’s medical history, often from various healthcare providers. For instance, the EMR for substance abuse developed by Canvas Medical offers a specialized solution tailored for behavioral health and addiction treatment facilities. It enables clinicians to document therapy sessions, manage medication-assisted treatment (MAT), and coordinate care across multidisciplinary teams. The platform’s built-in telehealth and reporting features also help streamline compliance and improve patient engagement in long-term recovery programs.
- Practice Management Software
Practice management (PM) software helps streamline your clinic’s workflow and management. For example, it automates mundane background tasks. It also ensures your clinic runs smoothly by keeping track of staff schedules, approaching patient appointments, and patient cancellations. The software also reduces human error and effort, allowing your staff to be more productive and invest their time caring for your patients instead of filling spreadsheets.
- Medical Billing and Accounting Software
The medical billing cycle is one of the most complex billing processes. It’s also very detail-oriented, making errors rampant and expensive. Medical billing and accounting software help automate and double-check every step of your billing process to reduce the rate of human and system errors.
- CRM Software for Healthcare
Customer relationship manager (CRM) software keeps tabs on your clinic’s patients and their interactions with your staff, their appointment details, feedback, and complaints. Using CRM tools, you can analyze data to identify patterns in patient dissatisfaction. This information should inform your strategy for patient care improvement. The software also ensures you always have the necessary infrastructure, supplies, and human resources to welcome your patients. Additionally, integrating a locum tenens staffing platform can help address sudden staffing shortages and maintain seamless operations. This ensures your clinic has access to qualified professionals ready to step in when needed, enhancing patient care and overall efficiency.
- Online Prescribing Software
Online prescribing software, also known as e-prescribing software, is a program that healthcare providers can use to fill patient prescriptions electronically. HelpCare Plus offers a platform that supports this process, making prescription management more efficient and secure. What makes it superior to using paper-prescriptions is the time it saves doctors from writing every prescription by hand and including the patient’s personal information. It also helps reduce the rate of medication errors due to illegible handwriting or the patient losing their prescription.
- Medical Diagnostic Software
Medical diagnostic software uses complex algorithms to help medical professionals diagnose patients. By inputting the patient’s healthcare record, symptoms, and current medications, the software produces a likely diagnosis almost instantly. Implementing medical diagnostic software in your clinic doesn’t just save you time and shorten patient appointments—more importantly, it reduces the rate of human error in misdiagnosis.
- Imaging and Visualization Software with Artificial Intelligence
Imaging and virtualization software help organize large sets of data into easy to understand graphics. They save your healthcare staff time otherwise spent decoding gigabytes of data and finding correlations and patterns manually. Instead, medically-informed artificial intelligence does all the math and planning for them, providing them with a clean and accurate end-result of the data they can use in patient diagnosis and research.
This software also helps with patient communication, as it’s much easier to get help a patient understand their illness, injury, or condition with the right graphics instead of relying on technical terms alone.
- Virtual Health Software and Devices
More commonly known as telemedicine, virtual healthcare software and devices allow you to provide care for your patients remotely, either from the comfort of their own homes or a different healthcare facility.
With telemedicine, you can save time and resources as you won’t have to welcome patients into your clinic for a full appointment, leaving examination rooms available. It also helps with better patient satisfaction, saving them the trip to your whereabouts while still providing them with adequate care.
Better Tech, Better Care
The benefits of modern technology in the healthcare industry have become indispensable. Nowadays, patients often expect online conveniences like being able to view their records and request prescription refills from a mobile app. To keep pace in this competitive, ever-evolving industry, your practise or clinic needs to lean into new technology.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) says the number of Nigerians enrolled in health insurance has risen to more than 22 million.
The Director-General of NHIA, Mr Kelechi Ohiri, said this resulted from the implementation of the mandatory health insurance, which has gained momentum nationwide.
He said this on Wednesday at the Annual General Meeting of the Nigerian Association of Insurance and Pension Editors (NAIPE) in Lagos.
Mr Ohiri said enrolment had increased to 22.03 million, representing a 35 per cent year-on-year growth, attributing this to stronger collaboration with state social health insurance agencies, ministries, departments and agencies, organised labour, employers, the private sector, and the gradual implementation of the mandatory health insurance provisions of the NHIA Act.
He said that the country had moved beyond policy formulation to delivering measurable improvements in healthcare access, service quality and consumer protection in line with the federal government’s health sector reform agenda.
According to him, Nigeria already has the necessary policies and legislation to achieve Universal Health Coverage, positing that the key challenge was effective implementation.
“The decisive variable is now implementation- consistent, rigorous and accountable execution that converts political commitment into healthcare access for real Nigerians,” he said.
Mr Ohiri said that the transition from the former National Health Insurance Scheme to the NHIA had strengthened regulation, consumer protection, accountability and strategic purchasing, while providing the legal and operational framework for achieving Universal Health Coverage.
He added that improving the experience of enrollees remained central to the Authority’s reform agenda.
According to him, NHIA has strengthened its complaints management system, introduced faster resolution timelines, and intensified compliance monitoring of Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) and healthcare providers.
He further added that NHIA had sanctioned facilities that failed to meet the required standards, adding that his organisation had resolved 3,878 complaints, representing an 87 per cent resolution rate, while 95 per cent of the cases were concluded within prescribed timelines.
Mr Ohiri noted that more than N14.2 million had been refunded to enrollees, while non-compliant healthcare facilities had been sanctioned.
He said NHIA had also introduced service standards, including a one-hour treatment commencement target for enrollees requiring urgent care, to improve access to timely and quality healthcare services.
The NHIA boss further disclosed that capitation payments to healthcare providers had been increased by 93 per cent.
He said fee-for-service reimbursements rose by 378 per cent to enable providers to invest more in personnel, equipment and infrastructure.
According to him, 7,592 healthcare facilities have been assessed under the SafeCare quality framework as part of efforts to institutionalise continuous quality improvement across the country.
Mr Ohiri also highlighted interventions targeted at vulnerable groups, including support for more than 48,500 pregnant women, expanded maternal and newborn healthcare services, the Vulnerable Group Fund, and improved access to healthcare for pensioners and retirees.
He said Universal Health Coverage could only be achieved if every Nigerian, regardless of income or location, had access to quality healthcare services.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The new one-hour authorisation response time ultimatum policy introduced by the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has received the full backing of SUNU Health Nigeria Limited.
This policy was introduced by the agency to ensure enrollees get prompt approval codes to access care.
Healthcare service providers have been urged to report any Health Maintenance Organisation (HMO) that violates this initiative through an email, with the HMO in copy and a timestamp attached as evidence of the request. They may proceed to offer services to enrollees thereafter.
Speaking at the company’s second-quarter Providers’ Forum for the Lagos-Ogun region in Lagos recently, the chief executive of SUNU Health, Dr Moyosore Olomola, expressed optimism that this policy would improve healthcare delivery in the country, especially for enrollees, who crave quality service.
At the event themed Improving Quality and Access to Care Through Stronger Provider Network, and held at the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) in Yaba, Lagos, Mr Olomola reaffirmed the HMO’s commitment to operating within legal and operational frameworks to guarantee adequate care for enrollees.
“Access to care and quality of care remain key priorities in our healthcare systems. We know quite well that deliberate collaboration, strategic partnerships, and a shared commitment to excellence are required to achieve these priorities.
“A strong provider network is doubtless the backbone of any effective healthcare system. It ensures that our mutual enrollees receive the right care, at the right time, in the right place, and at the right price,” Mr Olomola, represented at the programme by the organisation’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), Dr Faith Nwachi, stated.
He further assured that SUNU Health would strictly adhere to the one-hour authorisation limit, stressing that this aligns seamlessly with one of the organisation’s core values—promptness and its corporate slogan, Humanity is the centre of our initiatives.
In a bid to further improve access and quality of care, SUNU Health also demonstrated its new operational software and Mobile app, aptly named SUNU Legacy.
Also speaking at the event, the NHIA Lagos State Coordinator (Ikeja), Dr Bethuel-Kasimu Abraham, noted that the forum’s expected outcome is to significantly reduce delays in accessing medical care.
Other key expectations include ensuring continuity of care, improving patient outcomes, and strengthening accountability among HMOs.
Addressing specific pain points faced by enrollees, the NHIA Ogun State Coordinator, Mr Dare Adefeso, acknowledged that the agency had received complaints regarding out-of-stock drugs and the discrimination of enrollees by certain providers.
He affirmed that the NHIA is actively addressing these issues, stressing that moving forward, every facility must ensure enrollees are properly catered to regardless of their status, provided they have an active health insurance plan.
Corroborating the long-standing legacy of SUNU Health, the Ogun State Director of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mrs Aishat Tiamiyu, shared that her agency is responsible for public information dissemination and has been enrolled with SUNU Health for over 25 years.
Commending the HMO’s stellar service over two decades, she called for the immediate enrollment of new NOA staff into the scheme.
The Providers’ Forum remains one of the strategic channels employed by SUNU Health to consistently engage healthcare providers, understand their operational challenges, introduce new software updates, and solidify partnerships aimed at fostering premium healthcare delivery across Nigeria.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has announced the recall of a sexual enhancement product known as WAP Sensual Enhancement Capsules.
In a statement on Monday, the Nigerian agency disclosed that the recall is due to “undeclared pharmaceutical ingredients” in the product, whose country of origin is unknown, but is marketed and distributed online in the US through eBay.
It was emphasised that the recall is being “voluntarily” made by the manufacturer, Best Supplements Best Prices Company.
The detection of the undeclared pharmaceutical ingredients was made by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Laboratory analysis by the US FDA revealed that the product contained undeclared sildenafil, tadalafil, and flibanserin, which were not mentioned on the product label. Such substances may include phosphodiesterase type-5 (PDE-5) inhibitors or related compounds commonly used for the treatment of erectile dysfunction, the statement by NAFDAC stated.
Sildenafil and tadalafil are ingredients in FDA-approved prescription drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction.
It was noted that these undeclared ingredients may interact with nitrates found in some prescription drugs, such as nitroglycerin, and may lower blood pressure to dangerous levels. Consumers with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or heart disease often take nitrates.
Flibanserin is the active ingredient in an FDA-approved prescription drug used to treat low sexual desire in women. Flibanserin can cause drowsiness, sedation, dangerously low blood pressure, and fainting, especially when combined with alcohol.
Consumers have been encouraged to report compromised products (medicines or medical devices) to the nearest NAFDAC office, call 0800-162-3322, or send an email to sf******@********ov.ng.
