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.
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.
- 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.
- 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. 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.
Adedapo Adesanya