5 Tips For Improving Workflow In Healthcare

According to an analysis published by the HIPAA journal, a 500-bed hospital in the USA loses over $4 million each year because of ineffective communication. At the same time, hospital physicians end up wasting 40 minutes every day because they don’t know what their next task is. For any hospital, these numbers spell disaster and hint at an underlying problem of poor workplace management. Unless the workflow starts flowing again, patient care will worsen.

Therefore, it is pivotal to tighten the notch on the workflow to keep this trillion-dollar industry alive. This ensures every healthcare employee is aware of their responsibility and patient care doesn’t slack. The process of fine-tuning is tedious and requires immense dedication. But, with the right guidance, you will pull the system back on track. A hospital’s administration has a key role in fixing workflow. Therefore, your position as an administrator is an imperative one. Here are some ways you can exercise your power to bring back an optimal healthcare structure:

Fix the management hierarchy 

Strong management keeps a company in one piece. This also holds for hospitals, where the medical staff needs robust management to watch their back. The administration is responsible for providing healthcare workers with their schedules and resources to do their job and ensure non-clinical tasks such as medical billing are accurately carried out. 

So, if your management feels weak, try patching up the holes. You should show up to work early and brief yourself on the workload that has been pending. If you are new to the job, get an MHA certification before assuming your role as a leader. A lucrative credential has all the necessary knowledge to be the ideal administrator. You will walk through finance, law, and marketing concepts essential for elevating a hospital’s image. As a result, you will know how to delegate work, communicate over the hospital’s database and supervise teams without missing a beat. 

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Utilize hospital space efficiently 

At a time, a hospital has an abundance of office space, but not every room gets utilized. When there are limited rooms for physical evaluation, it extends the waiting time and causes a delay in appointments. Consequently, patients may get fed up and leave or begrudgingly attend their appointment. More than half of the patients in the US find waiting for a check-up frustrating. 

Therefore, standardizing rooms and using all the hospital rooms can speed up the consultation process. This is useful for patients who come in for routine tests, need to get a shot, or want a general consultation on noncritical conditions. 

You can stock these rooms with the basic inventory a medical practitioner needs, such as a portable blood pressure machine, thermometers, OTC medications, and protective gear. A checklist can help you standardize the apparatus every room needs. A software development company like Sciencesoft can design an automatic inventory management system for your hospital. As a result of which, you will never fall behind on refills. 

Help patients connect to services faster

You can request patients to use online patient portals to book an appointment and fill out the relevant paperwork before coming down to the hospital. This includes their medical history, allergies, age, gender, and visiting reasons. Patients don’t need to manually fill another form at reception when you already have the information in your database. 

You can also help a patient prepare for their appointment. For instance, if a patient needs to submit their blood work or get an MRI, help them obtain one before they see their physician to prevent further delay in waiting for lab results. You can also maximize booking appointments and minimize patient downtime. So if a patient misses an appointment after ten minutes, the physician should move on to the next patient booked for the same day. 

Hire more staff 

While hiring new practitioners can be expensive, you must balance the patient-to-medical staff ratio. Even if you optimize every facility the hospital offers, a handful of medical experts will still struggle to keep up with the workload. Allow all medical experts to apply, even those with a bachelor of science in nursing, instead of holding out for specialists alone. 

You can always send nurses with basic skills for training or appoint them to manage simple tasks necessary for a patient’s checkup. This can include verifying the ER data, uploading the information online, and carrying out medical tests. Placing the responsibility on limited medical practitioners can be a source of stress for them, which can cause breakdowns and burnout. When a doctor or a nurse is no longer in a position to perform, no matter how skilled they are, a patient suffers, and the healthcare system gets burdened. 

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Integrate technology and automation

Technology and automation are indispensable parts of healthcare. Patient care is much more effective when hospitals readily include technology in the healthcare hemisphere. At the same time, various gadgets are rolling out every year. Here are a few examples you should consider adding to the hospital: 

  • Bluetooth pacemakers. Globally there are over 3 million people with pacemakers. This nifty tool aims to regulate heartbeats and smoothen heart murmurs that occur because of heart-related conditions. One of the largest medical technology companies globally, Medtronic has designed Bluetooth-controlled pacemakers. These give patients autonomy to monitor the device with an app on the smartphone instead of visiting the doctor to get the condition of the pacemaker checked. This prevents pacemakers from malfunctioning and allows doctors to monitor patients remotely.
  • Continuous glucose monitoring. Diabetes is a painful and life-altering chronic condition to deal with. One of the most frustrating aspects of this disease is consistent glucose monitoring. Therefore the first FDA-approved automated insulin system should be a part of the healthcare system. The mini-med 770G delivers insulin with no intervention from the user by detecting the patient’s glucose levels.
  • Automatic IV pumps. Infusion pumps help deliver nutrients, administer painkillers, or pump patients with hormones. However, the dosage needs to get closely monitored, or it can adversely affect the patient. Automatic IV pumps help nurses give the patient the necessary dose without going overboard. The sensor automatically stops the flow of fluids when the patient gets the desired amount. 

Conclusion

The healthcare sector cannot afford to get clogged with an abundance of workload and an increasing patient population. Therefore as a healthcare administrator, you must facilitate workflow optimally. Start by reclaiming the management and ensuring doctors do their job as required. You can convert empty hospital rooms into usable spaces to prevent patients from waiting for an extended period.

Encourage patients to use hospital resources to fast track their appointment and allow many patients to get scheduled for a day to maximize providing care. You may also hire more health staff workers to manage cases instead of relying on a small team. Don’t hesitate to use technology to treat and look after patients. With these factors working in combination, workplace flow will not get bottlenecked.

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