What do these statistics signify? One sure shot revelation that is observed is the emergence of technology lead healthcare that is carving a niche for itself. Custom software solutions for the medical/healthcare industry have taken the entire segment by storm and are turning out to be an indispensable ingredient in its success story.
Bespoke software has brought about a digital revolution in the healthcare industry. They see to it that each business need of the fraternity is met through its software support, facilitating the hospitals/medical units to prosper by leaps and bounds. Be it through apps, smart devices, health recording systems, these healthcare IT solutions have proven their mettle world over.
Why the Healthcare Industry Requires Customized Software
The fundamental goal of healthcare IT solutions is to attain the best of health equity by offering the best care for patients and high-quality administration. Through its key features like patient information recording, business intelligence, and data analytics and many more, custom software solutions help hospitals manage their business in a much-enhanced manner.
Here are some of the key objectives that these IT solutions promise to fulfill:
- Implementation of data analytics to come up with the best of treatment and patient tracking
- Transmitting needed information within stakeholders within the right time at the right place with the right data
- Lessening of medical errors related to different activities
- Increased patient and hospital security
- Smooth interaction and exchange of information between healthcare service providers, doctors, and patients
- Accurate patient records and maintenance of medical history
- Seamless integration with the latest technologies like beacons, IoT, cloud computing, mobile devices, etc.
- Improving the quality of treatment, administration, recordkeeping at hospitals
- Offering better and in-depth insights into patient information, medical records, history and future steps to be taken
Key Essentials of Effective Bespoke Software Solution for the Healthcare Industry
There are many healthcare service providers and more custom software solutions, offering to fulfill the above-mentioned objectives. But that does not suffice. There are a certain set of characteristics that need to be observed and judged, prior to choosing an effective solution:
It Should Be Customizable/Configurable
While choosing or building an effective healthcare application, it is imperative to see that it should be configurable/customizable. Whether to go in for configuration or customization, is a decision, that depends upon many factors. But what is important is that the solution should be such that caters to the business needs and workflow of that medical unit/hospital.
Only then will it be able to cater to the IT needs of the industry zone. If your healthcare service provider offers you a software solution that finely, matches your needs, a mere configuration may work out. But, if there are certain business procedures that aren’t being catered, it is better to customize the solution and make it workable especially for the business domain.
It Needs to Support Integration to 3rd Party Solutions/Devices
Integration is very important for many things – the existing business systems, internal business processes, third party systems, external devices, to it all. Only if it is a fully integrated system, it serves the purpose of offering a single approach to complete healthcare management and information system. Right from the start of the entire medical process until the end, each workflow should be covered in the system.
There Has to Be Complete Software and Training Support
Nothing without proper guidance and training towards the healthcare software solution being implemented. To garner the best of customer satisfaction, optimum usage and implementation of the software solution and to ensure all business workflows are integrated, it is a must to offer the best of training, documentation and software support to all stakeholders involved, in their own capacities.
Optimum Connectivity Is a Must
In an ideal healthcare solution, there must be a continuous and seamless interaction between patients, doctors, administrators. And hence, maintaining and ensuring connectivity between them is of extreme importance for a software solution to succeed. Good connectivity ensures consistent speed and quality in the performance of the software, ensuring desired results in a stipulated time frame.
Implementation Needs to Be Efficient and Swift
After all, this is a mission-critical industry, dealing with the health and wellness of human lives. Introduction to any new software solution is a big job and hence its implementation must be quick, well-planned and efficient. It needs to be streamlined in such a way that there is the least disturbance in the daily business routines of the management/doctors and optimum service to patients.
It must be a simplistic and well-tested implementation along with a crisp training schedule that can help save on time, money and energy. The latest advancements like cloud computing would wonder in such a case.
It Should Have a Patient First Approach
The patients are the central entity for any healthcare unit and hence catering to patient needs and making a patient-centric software solution works best. Not that other healthcare segments are not vital, but the first focus goes onto patient dealing and administration. If patients can access the solution easily, there is the scope of a higher acceptance level from the entire fraternity.
Create a Platform-Independent Solution
The end-users of the healthcare solution need not be bound with a device or OS. The solution must be workable on any platform, any device, only then will it be easily accepted by its users. Be it tablets, mobile phones, laptops or desktops, the solution should respond based on configuration.
Futuristic Healthcare Trends With Tailored Software Solutions
Healthcare Business Intelligence & Analytics
- Focused healthcare business intelligence ensures that the health industry collect, and reviews data captured, reliability in a trusted mode
- Covers patient health, economic restrictions, administration & compliance archives become scalable, flexible and efficient, producing critical information at the right time
- Hospitals, health centers, and other facilities leverage notable development with targets not just for clinical departments, but for technical, quality and financial teams
- Dynamic dashboards signify patient & treatment data, details of disease patterns, administrative data, as well as individual performances of employees
- Total operational efficiency in terms of fighting diseases & epidemics with perceptive predictions; catering healthier patient experiences, both on-premise and after discharge; follow-ups and feedback receive improvement with healthcare business intelligence
Millennial Age Healthcare ERP
- Healthcare ERP streamlines the complete patient lifecycle in hospitals & healthcare institutions
- Cautiously implemented custom ERP solutions for hospitals integrate technology inside the workflows to improve inclusive productivity & efficiency
- Effective workflow management, augmented visibilities into the happenings, enhanced costs, effective scheduling, towards clinical analytics
- Patient relationship management & personalization, improved patient engagement, increased well-being. on-premise or away
Beacon App Development as the Pulse of Healthcare
- Beacons push the healthcare & hospital operations when it comes to computerization, innovation & improving productivity
- The level of integration beacons has with IoT permits operational healthcare to make a move towards transformation empowered with technology
- Easy navigation, digitized access control, patient tracking & monitoring using beacons, healthcare asset tracking, analytics
- The medical staff gets notifications pertaining to their allocated duties when they reach the workplace
- Nurses get conversant about what kind of medication the patient has been given to during their round using beacon technology
- Doctors then get prompts on when was the last physician round in that ward or near the patient bed
Mobile App Development for Virtual Healthcare
- Enterprise mobility solutions for the healthcare industry integrate the obligatory norms like HIPAA – the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, guard medical records and other Personal Health Information (PHI)
- Usage of industry precise tools like the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set -HEDIS is a vital part of the Enterprise mobility solutions for the Healthcare industry today
- Reducing the efforts of clinicians and patients to meet each other physically where preventable, virtual healthcare increases the efficiency of many in this fast-paced life
- Applications established for various devices, smartphones, tablets, wearables take charge of the industry and change it into the mHealth industry making the most of the flexibility and ease of use that these devices offer to the stakeholders across the range of the healthcare industry
Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain for Healthcare
- Healthcare will be heavily impacted by two most advanced technologies – AI and Blockchain. AI and Blockchain will offer a personalized environment majorly for patients, doctors and administration staff and offer higher productivity
- There will be strengthened human and machine interaction through machine learning
- There is much to be explored in this arena yet
Technology Challenges for Healthcare Industry in Modern Times
The digital revolution has offered a lot to the healthcare industry, but comes packaged with a certain set of challenges, that need to be addressed:
Catering to Federal HIPAA Privacy Norms
The healthcare industry is supposed to secure patient privacy information under the HIPAA act. For that, they need to follow certain pre-defined norms that include data backup, emergency situations, etc. There is also a HITECH act that has empowered HIPAA by adding penalties and increasing the level of strictness with data breaches.
Lack of Communication Between Developed Systems
The healthcare industry has developed largely over the last few years but is there a seamless communication between involved healthcare solutions? Not yet. There are still unseen hurdles that come across when it comes to maintaining the communication level between the advanced solutions. Even activities like data collection, process automation, etc. are not happening to its optimum, thereby, offering lesser RoI on technology adaption.
Exponential Growth of Healthcare Information
Owing to various reasons like electronic medical records, digital imaging methods, and resource exhaustive apps, there is a high growth of health-related information. This pressurizes the current infrastructure that is hosting healthcare solutions. Certain telemedicine-related technologies and mobile applications that come with secure storage need also impact data growth.
Limited Storage Capacities
With the growing acceptance of custom software solutions in the healthcare industry, the amount of data being generated is being doubled every few months. Storing this data effectively, securely and methodically is highly important for the successful maintenance of the same. Hospitals/Medical centers that opt for such solutions need to focus on storage needs right from the beginning, barring which may lead to utter chaos.
Coming up With Latest Advancements
As much as it looks like a key feature and major benefit, the confluence of healthcare IT solutions with the latest advancements like IoT, cloud computing, mobile technologies, etc. is equally challenging. There are multiple factors associated with each one of them that need to be catered, analyzed and tested prior to implementation, which may not be an easy task.
Wrapping It Up
Healthcare injected finely with technology, is what we need today. Custom software solutions for the medical / healthcare industry have carved a niche for themselves and the future showcases a bright move for them. Of course, there are tough roads ahead but with a well-thought-of implementation plan and an all-in-one software development partner to help with, there is no looking back.
