HIMS offers many merits to its users. With the increasing trend of competitive environment in corporate healthcare, HIMS is not less than indispensible

By Sadananda Reddy, MD, GOLDSTAR Healthcare

Technology has become an integral part of our everyday life and more precisely software is becoming the backbone of smart enterprise. In healthcare, software plays a vital role in shifting and managing information, taking decisions etc.

In todays era, hospitals demand software that can increase productivity, provides the information according to the requirement of hospital authorities to help the management to take decisions effectively. This situation has risen due to the increased burden of lifestyle related issues, increase in population and their raised standard of living, growing awareness, increase in Government taking initiatives to streamline personalised information, storage, retri for hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centers and teaching hospitals.

Thus, hospital owners, administrators, and entrepreneurs have recognised the need of appropriate HIMS to keep the IT spending low. Data generated from HIMS solution helps hospital owners /administrators /entrepreneurs to take required actions. This in turn can save the image of the hospital and can avoid having bad financial implications as well.

Using a common platform, we can reduce the financial implications in the hospital setup, achieve better productivity, utilising the same medium for every process of the hospital environment gives scope for addressing quality aspects and evidence based practices in patient related services. Due to lack of unique and controlled structures, revenue leakage happens very often. Besides, inefficient processes in patient discharge will result to poor utilisation of patient room facilities.

HIMS solution based on prevailing standards will help in increase bottom line with proper control. Material management is another pitfall area of financial implication in the hospital where 30 to 40 per cent of total expenditure spends on materials management (procuring and maintaining inventory-carrying cost, etc). One percent saving in the expenditure will add revenue to top line.

Standardisation of various materials/ items usage in the hospital can be achieved easily as data is readily available. Various alerts /pop-ups generated proactively will help to avoid catastrophe.

Procurement groups should take advantage of technology available in the market that can help them analyse quality and total cost quoted to make better decisions based on optimise combination of usage outcomes, cost, and risk. Vendors uates on the inputs entered based on quantity, quality, price quotes, and delivery mechanism. Procurement and tenders decisions are made with the availability of data on vendors record of accomplishment.

Another department, designed report structures; there is a leakage of fund in the laboratory department. Therefore, there is a need of Laboratory Information System (LIS), which can be advantageous to increase the revenue stream and patient care as well.

Use of HIMS in various departments:
HIMS records to manage stock inventory of all departments and particularly laboratory reagents, implants, re-used items etc.
HIMS has bar code system for laboratory samples for correcting sample processing
HIMS enables profit centre accounting for hospital laboratory
HIMS triggers critical operating parameters
Interfaces with the equipments helping in reduction of human error in entering results and checks balances for manual entry

Radiology Information System (RIS) is a part of HIMS solution used to save the details of the patient who avails the radiology services. Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) is an integrated system for acquiring, sorting, transporting, storing electronically displaying medical images through the RIS of HIMS solution to communicate images and reports to refer doctor/physician through EMR in a reliable manner and supports in the clinical decision-making.

User-friendly module for doctors and electronic medical records will have a great impact on doctors while treating patients. It will allow them to concentrate on clinical activities than clerical activities thus can provide valuable information for the doctors in areas like research, clinical paper presentation and to serve better to their patients. With online doctor accounting, doctors will be able to see the settled and unsettled payments details against the rendered services. Doctor can prescribe the drugs through Computerised Physician Order Entry (CPOE) to avoid prescription errors.

Any untoward incidents if occurs in providing patient care and backend processes prompt alerts can enable in the solution which in turn can be rectified preventing further damage/loss to the hospital. Hospital administrators would be able to significantly improve the operational control and achieve the set targets. Further plan of action can be taken and target should be set with the help of fully automated and real time online and accurate MIS & FIS reports.

User-friendly module for doctors and electronic medical records will have a great impact on doctors while treating patients. It will allow them to concentrate on clinical activities than clerical activities

Work force cost can be reduced with the proper recruitment of right people at the right place with the usage of desired IT solution in achieving result-oriented outcome. Human errors can be minimised, healthy competition will spread among internal departments as processes streamlined with single click data is available that can make the process complete in the stipulated time that leads to employee satisfaction. With the easy use of IT solutions among different categories of employees, it can have a great impact on patient service and backend processes. This leads to greater patient satisfaction in the hospital and ultimately increases in patient footfalls.Hospitals with multi-location can have better connectivity and control the processes from single location and can reduce the administrative cost. Data saved in a location and retrieved as and when required at requisite locations through web based browsers solution is possible.

A reputation for higher quality will increase the demand for an organisations services in a competitive market, but it is difficult to prove that you are better than your competitors are. Healthcare providers who invest in right solution can raise quality and generate the statistics to prove that they have done so. Perceived higher quality allows organisations to increase market share and to negotiate higher prices from payers whose members demand access to those organisations, even if they have to pay slightly higher premiums to get it. In a competitive fee-for-service environment, greater market share increases revenues and may permit some economies of scale. A hospital also will not benefit financially from interventions that shift care to physicians practices.

Process improvements enabled by the HIMS will influence the average length of stay (ALOS), a key indicator of efficiency, and a major driver of savings in the HIS business case. Individuals familiar with hospital operations will recognise that many manual paper-based processes cause delays in information flow. With proper IT Solution / HIMS the order transmitted in seconds, delays reduced, and timely delivery of care enabled. The electronic medical record and automated prescribing tools in the HIMS will improve safeguards reducing the number of medical errors made due to poor or inaccurate documentation in
the inpatient setting. The system will also provide medication alerts for physicians and pharmacists to help reduce adverse drug events, stemming from prescribing and transcribing errors.

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