Tag: healthcare application
Over the next three years, 66% of healthcare executives are planning to increase their investment in digital twin, states a recent digital health technology report. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital twin technology has been playing a key role in aiding healthcare professionals. Digital twin is used to optimize the usage of ventilators for critical patients, support contactless temperature scanning, reduce person-to-person contact, trial drugs, and prevent the risk of disease transmission. In the post-COVID-19 era too, medical researchers can leverage digital twins to analyze the existing data and study the impact caused on the human body.
In this blog, we’ll take you through what is digital twin technology and how it’s creating an impact in the healthcare industry? Let’s checkout!
The Role of Digital Twin in Healthcare
Digital twin technology allows you to replicate the physical world in a digital layout. A digital twin is a virtual model of a device, object, or process that operates in real-time to update data when changes are made. Researchers rely on digital twins to test new scenarios in real-life environments with improved safety and cost-effectiveness. In the past, the application of digital twins was limited to sectors such as industrial engineering and manufacturing. It was economically unviable to build digital twins in other fields like healthcare and education. The proliferation and affordability of innovative technologies such as IoT, AI, ML, AR, VR, and XR are accelerating the adoption of digital twins in healthcare.
Read more: The Application and Impact of Information Technology in Healthcare
The healthcare industry is constantly striving to enhance patient outcomes, reduce operating costs, and address unforeseen medical crises effectively. The US-based Digital Twin Consortium observes that digital twin technology has the potential to improve patient turnaround, reduce patient wait times, optimize equipment utilization, cut staffing expenses, and minimize bed shortages. It helps personalize medicines based on real-time data and improve the operational efficiency and performance of healthcare organizations by identifying workflow bottlenecks and scheduling optimization.
Top 5 Applications of Digital Twin in Healthcare
Digital twins allow the creation of handy virtual models and medical simulations based on the data gathered from wearable devices, patient records, drugs and pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, and other healthcare departments. This helps streamline the overall clinical and caregiving processes. Listed here are the top five applications of medical digital twins:
1. Customize treatments and drug administration
Digital twins allow physicians, hospitals, and clinics to deliver patient-centric care by leveraging precision medicine. Data stored in healthcare mobile apps, medical software, wearables, fitness trackers, and other medical devices can be captured into digital twins which enables doctors and front-line health workers to address patients with persistent or critical conditions. For example, combining AI-powered anatomical analysis with the virtual model of a patient’s heart helps understand the progression of heart diseases over time. It enables medical researchers to identify how the patient will respond to new drugs, treatments, or surgical intercessions. Digital twin experiments are also conducted to analyze the progression of neurogenerative ailments such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
2. Advance surgical procedure planning
Digital twin technology enables brain and heart surgeons to run virtual simulations of surgical procedures prior to executing complex surgeries. Testing pre-operative and post-operative surgical procedures and outcomes on a digital replica of human body parts reduces the risk of hampering human health. Advanced, patient-specific computational models of human organs help plan and augment complex surgical interventions with improved precision and care.
Read more: How Virtual Reality Benefits Autistic Patients
3. Enhance caregivers’ efficiency and experience
Digital twins support caregivers to gain a consolidated view of patient data scattered across various medical applications, physicians, and specialists. Technologies like Natural Language Processing (NLP) help infer the data and summarize the medical history of each patient. Capturing patient-specific information onto your medical dashboard throws better light into the context of each patient. This improves your clinical decision-making ability.
Digital twin model of a hospital allows you to measure the impact of organizational changes. For instance, you can use the virtual model to test new operational strategies, care delivery programs, staffing rotation, appointment scheduling, hospital bed facilities, surgical schedules, and so on. This helps redesign your organization’s workflow, improve coordination among various departments, and reduce the treatment window.
Case Study: How Fingent’s healthcare technology solution helped improve collaboration between doctors, patients, and caregivers
4. Test new medical devices and drugs
Federal drug regulators such as the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agency as well as the European Medicines Agency (EMA) propose using AI algorithms to determine the safety and effectiveness of pilot drugs. Digital twins can simulate the health traits of a larger number of patients which helps analyze how a drug’s usage will impact a wider population. Using several inclusion and exclusion paradigms, AI helps pace up drug trials by identifying the willingness and availability of patients. Digital twins can also mitigate the harmful impact of experimental drugs and reduce the number of patients who need to undergo real-world testing.
It takes more than $2 billion to manufacture and launch a new drug into the market. Trial phase alone costs heavily and over 90% of treatments fail during this period. Capitalizing on technologies like machine learning and computational modeling helps expedite the early stages of drug design, development, and safety evaluation. Digital twins integrate the test data across various samples to give a holistic picture of the drug’s effect on patients.
5. Improve supply chain flexibility
The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic weakened our supply chains due to the lockdowns and transportation bans across various countries. This resulted in the shortage of essential healthcare supplies. Digital twins allow healthcare organizations to create robust contingency plans to address such unpredicted events, increase bed capacity, manage emergencies during shutdowns or shortages, offer remote patient care, and design and construct new medical facilities to reach out to more patients. Hospitals, labs, and healthcare establishments can remodel their supply chain relationships to create alternative plans, improve collaboration with suppliers, and team up with authorities to plan and negotiate.
Read more: Why is it better to outsource custom healthcare software development
Make The Most of Digital Twins with Fingent
Healthcare application development experts at Fingent help you overcome the hurdles that defer digital twin adoption such as data gathering, quality of clinical trial datasets, and information security and privacy. We develop custom healthcare apps leveraging technologies such as VR, AI, ML, and IoT that enable you to virtually test innovations and deliver exceptional patient care. These solutions can be tailored to optimize both your clinical and operational functions. For instance, we help you develop virtual simulators for ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support System), accident trauma care standard operating procedure, an orthopedic or cardiac surgical procedure involving complex tools, and Neo-natal Resuscitation Simulator (GOLDEN MINUTE PROTOCOL).
Read more: How Virtual Reality Improves the Standards of Medical Education and Training
Besides VR, healthcare providers can benefit from various customizable solutions such as connected healthcare apps powered by IoT, integrated medical dashboard software, remote patient monitoring systems, and healthcare analytics applications. Improve your organization’s technology ecosystem with Fingent top software development company. Contact us to design digital twins and drive innovation.
How Can Custom-Made Software Provide Superior Customer Service In The Healthcare Industry?
Healthcare is a vast customer service industry that is trying to improve patient health and healthcare processes. This patient-centric approach has evolved, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual consultations and telemedicine practices have increased rapidly in the last two years. A report by PwC on global healthcare trends reports, 91% of consumers who used virtual clinical care in the past would do so in the future. Additionally, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows an increase of 154% in the use of telehealth in March 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.
As patients are demanding much more streamlined and seamless access to healthcare, most organizations are trying to get rid of old conventional systems that limit performance. Today, patients seek personalized treatment. That’s where custom-made software comes into the picture.
Read more: Is Augmented Reality the future of HealthCare?
Custom software is built to cater to the specific needs of the users. They intend to solve unique challenges. Emerging technologies have proved an immense benefit to the healthcare sector. When these technologies are integrated together they bring various benefits to doctors, patients, medical organizations, and the entire healthcare industry.
A few commonly known custom software solutions for healthcare are:
- Electronic Health Record (EHR)
- Hospital Management Systems
- Telemedicine
- Electronic Prescriptions System
- Appointment Scheduling
- Medical Equipment Management
- Medical Research
In this blog, we will further dig into how custom-made software provides superior customer service in the healthcare industry.
How is custom-made software boosting patient care?
1. Improved personalized patient services
Data-driven patient services are adding value to patient care. Data that is recorded, transmitted, and easily available is helping improve doctor-patient interactions. This allows healthcare organizations to personalize their patient services. Additionally, they can manage their interactions with thousands of patients without the need for administrative overhead.
2. Improved communication and organization
With custom-made software, different departments can communicate easily and improve the organizational culture of hospitals. Departments can share information without the need for manual entries and documentation. Also, patients can visit any department without carrying any document along as the information is already available electronically with the hospital.
3. Improved growth
Custom software digitally transforms the traditional medical record maintenance system and makes it paper-free. The Electronic Medical Record (EMR) can store data of thousands of patients securely host on the cloud. This decreases operating costs and eventually increases the ROI. Thus, custom software plays a pivotal role in improving business growth.
4. Integrated system
Custom-made software integrates different workflows that your organization requires daily. Custom software can synchronize several simple and complex processes such as finance, OPD, human resources, etc., in a single place. This helps reduce workplace stress and allows healthcare providers to invest more time in patient care.
Read more: Choosing Prescriptive Analytics over Predictive Analytics in Healthcare!
Why is Customer Service a priority in Healthcare?
Health issues can be stressful emotionally as well as financially. When engaging with healthcare organizations, most patients expect personal care in addition to the treatment. Thus, the more personalized the care, treatment, and engagement with patients, the more likely it is to have happy customers.
How can custom-made software improve customer service?
1. Scheduling appointments
Using custom-made software, healthcare organizations can improve the scheduling experience by reducing wait times and the time taken to capture patient data. It can also help provide appointment confirmations and reminders via text message or email prior to the appointment.
Booking appointments is the most elementary feature in most healthcare apps.
2. Service delivery experience
Custom-made software can provide healthcare practitioners with complete access to patient records health history along with diagnostic tools and systems. In addition, healthcare practitioners can use digital tools to record treatment notes, patient recommendations, queries, and diagnosis notes while interacting with the patient. This helps provide patients with tailor-made experiences and improve customer service in general.
3. Post-appointment follow-up
Healthcare practitioners can use auto-trigger feedback forms that allow patients to rate their experience, which will enable them to measure patient satisfaction. Doing so will improve customer engagement and foster a long-term relationship with patients.
Read more: Custom Healthcare Software Development: Why Is It Better To Outsource It?
How Fingent can help your healthcare organization improve patient care?
Whether your healthcare business is small or big, a custom healthcare solution is the only way to move ahead in the game and ensure quality and effective patient care services. Fingent is a trusted partner and has been proving efficiency in custom-made healthcare solutions for years. Here are some of Fingent’s success stories in enabling healthcare organizations to drive unique and streamlined customer experiences.
#1 A Custom Solution To Simplify Patient Care
Miscommunication between doctors, patients, and healthcare providers can turn life-threatening. That’s why it’s highly imperative that communications are streamlined. Although this itself could be a challenge!
That’s why Fingent helped develop a simplified patient-care solution, Encourage, that promotes effective communications amongst the various players in the healthcare ecosystem. A doctor can keep track of patients’ progress, assign tasks, and set reminders and care plans, as part of the patients’ profile. Patients can also get involved and also add selected caretakers to the care plan. The solution not just helps streamline communication, but also helps improve patient engagement and allows to better educate patients and families on various treatments.
Know more on how Encourage turned an apt custom software solution for simplified patient care!
#2 Healthcare Service Platform
Providing the right healthcare guidance, knowledge, or tools to the patients or their families can be time-consuming. Plus, it’s also imperative that the information shared is confidential and extremely accurate.
To streamline and solve such challenges in patient engagement and collaboration, Fingent helped develop an online platform, NovitaCare, that helps engage patients, providers, researchers, and NGOs to collaborate online and facilitate quality care. The solution equips many early-stage healthcare start-ups to streamline their workflow, improve patient-caregiver and caregiver-patient interactions, eliminate wastage, improve accountability and raise patient care quality.
Learn more on how NovitaCare turned into a top-notch solution for healthcare patient management.
#3 Improving Visibility on Hospital Performances with Data Visualization
It is vital for patients to choose the best hospitals and healthcare centers based on their performances. NHS wanted to create a platform that streamlined this search with metrics that compared hospital performances to showcase the best and those with good success rates.
Fingent designed an application that utilized data inputs from NHS to create interactive visuals and graphs to compare hospital performances. The solution drills down the minute of details to analyze hospitals across various parameters to deliver financial, clinical, and geographical insights, highlighting key performance issues and indicators.
Read more on how NHS used Fingent’s data visualization capabilities to identify the best-performing healthcare centers.
#4 Cutting-edge Web Application for Health Insurance Decision-makers
In partnership with Casenet’s ASG, Fingent helped simplify TruCare Insights, a nimble PHM platform that aids healthcare payer organizations.
Casenet’s Advanced solution group wanted to create an application that provides action-oriented dashboards and management ease to healthcare payer organizations. The platform, TrueCare did not provide integrated reporting options, and maintaining reports and reconciling them required excessive manual labor. Thus, Fingent helped the team build a highly scalable web application, with best-in-class UI/UX design, to seamlessly integrate the complex workflows of TrueCare, and manage 10 mn+ data records using custom filters.
Know more on how helping Casenet simplify their platform TrueCare streamlined their workflow and management!
Using our proven strategies, Fingent top software development company has helped many healthcare organizations and non-profit healthcare sectors boost performance and bring innovative ideas to life. Our experts help provide external perspective, agility, and understanding needed for real innovations. With us, you can get access to skilled software development professionals and all the ancillary roles to develop technology solutions that are apt and unique to your challenges. Additionally, we provide the best-in-class support during and after custom software development.
To know more about how we can help you deploy the top technologies for improved healthcare services, connect with us today!
With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare industry is spiraling at an unexpected speed and is continuously inventing healthcare solutions to drive streamlined operations. Medical organizations are now largely depending on custom healthcare software solutions to maintain medical history, electronic health records, patient’s personal information, and other medical data to provide better patient care and health services. This blog will take you through why your healthcare organization needs to invest in custom healthcare software development, and how it’s beneficial to outsource it!
What is custom healthcare software development?
Today, healthcare is driven by technological innovations such as big data, electronic patient record systems, interoperability, and machine learning. The need for this is to provide better patient experiences and improve health outcomes. To achieve this, there is a need for professionally designed tools and solutions that can help healthcare providers to deliver patient-first and cost-effective care.
Custom healthcare software development is the process of creating web or mobile apps for medical professionals so they can interact with patients better, use medical data analytics, and access patient health records.
Examples of how custom software development has transformed the healthcare industry include;
- Tools such as Hospital Management Systems (HMS) or Hospital Information System (HIS) are comprehensive integrated solutions that handle different aspects of hospital or clinic’s workflow efficiently.
- An Electronic Health Record (EHR) system collects a patient’s data and history and stores it in a digital format that makes sharing across different healthcare systems easy.
- Mobile apps and wearable devices are serving several health aspects.
Read more: Augmented Reality in Healthcare: The Industry Future!
Key benefits of custom healthcare software
1. Tailor-made solution
Software solutions built specifically catering to your organizational needs help deliver better customer services. Especially when it concerns providing patient-care services, it is always recommended to invest in custom or tailormade solutions. An off-the-shelf or packaged solution, in comparison to a custom software solution, may or may not be able to meet your organization’s requirements or even work well within a specific type of facility. A custom software solution will help solve your business-specific complexes and will help meet your business goals.
2. Streamline processes
Undoubtedly, technology enables us to get our work done efficiently and more accurately. A custom software solution can have a far-reaching impact. It frees your staff to allow them to focus on patient care.
3. Personalized care
Today, patients want to understand their health on their own and expect personalized services from their healthcare provider. This is why there is an increasing demand for telemedicine, at-home testing kits, and health apps.
4. Enhanced security
Custom healthcare software solutions are built in compliance with the industry standards and guarantee that personal data stays secure and confidential. An app must comply with Open Web Application Security Project standards and other certifications, to be approved.
When it comes to creating custom healthcare software, organizations can;
- Leverage any open-source platform to create a customizable solution without the need for coding
- Outsource the entire custom software development process to a reliable development agency.
Read more: Why Healthcare Prefers Prescriptive Analytics Over Predictive Analytics
Advantages of outsourcing healthcare software development
1. Economical and effective
By outsourcing to a third-party offshore company, you can save a lot of costs. It helps save largely on the cost of developing application infrastructure, recruiting professionals, training the recruits, and deployment and pre-installation set-up costs. Most service providers use advanced technology that would fit your budget.
2. Experienced team
While some projects require a large pool of software developers others may not. In such cases, it may be difficult to hire software developers and then relieve them after completing the work as it involves a huge cost to hire, set up infrastructure, and team. Therefore, outsourcing custom healthcare software development gives you the leeway to scale up or down resources as per your project requirements.
3. Agile and scalable solutions
In-house healthcare developers are usually burdened with several other tasks which cause them to lose focus and compromise on the delivery of the app. Collaborating with a third-party agency will provide you with the flexibility of managing the resources and whenever you need them. This will also help you include scalable software developers to build an app that is more agile and consistent.
4. Quick time to market
Outsourcing the custom development task will give you access to experts from healthcare domains to develop your applications. This will ensure your app be superior,well-grained, and reach the market faster so patients can be treated faster.
5. Increased productivity
As offshore developers are qualified and talented enough to develop your app, you won’t have to burden them with briefings and preparations. This will allow you to focus on improving the critical and core healthcare services of your organization thus improving the results significantly.
Read more: Healthcare Analytics Reaches New Heights with SAP HANA
Cost of outsourcing custom healthcare software development
When it comes to the healthcare industry, the average cost of an experienced developer is not cheap. That is why 59% of global companies outsource software development. While the costs vary from country to country, you will still save about 40-70% of the total costs. For example, the average hourly cost for a software developer in the US is $65–$130 per hour while the hourly cost of offshore developers in Asia and Africa is $20–45.
Why choose Fingent?
If you need custom healthcare software for your organization, Fingent top custom software development company is your trusted partner.
- We have a pool of experienced and skilled developers who can help you identify the right solution for your business complexities.
- Our agile methodology of development ensures client involvement at every stage so that the solution is scalable, cost-effective, as well as caters to specific client requirements.
- We offer transparent offshore development services in terms of overhead costs and recruitment fees.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for custom healthcare software development cannot be denied. Our developers are not only affordable but can add much value in terms of talent and skill to your organization. Connect with our experts today!
Custom patient engagement platforms improve caregiver-patient interactions today. Here’s how.
With the COVID-19 pandemic restricting face-to-face engagement, patients have started using telehealth (telemedicine) technology and other digital channels to receive healthcare services. The growth of digital healthcare will increase the demand for healthcare technologies in the future. 81% of people (patients) want healthcare providers to know them individually and deliver more personalized and meaningful experiences.
While support programs like teleconsulting do not replace the physical presence of healthcare providers, they offer valued information, which is the need of the hour. With stay-at-home mandates, social distancing, and lockdowns, telemedicine is the vital care model that boosts patient engagement today. Personalized patient engagement fosters trust among patients and ensures continuity of care. So, in times of pandemic and beyond, patient engagement platforms will play a crucial role.
Read more: 5 ways to optimize the revenue of your medical practice and clinical processes
Patient engagement and its growing significance
In simple terms, patient engagement is a concept where patients are actively involved and considered important decision-makers in their care.
Engaged patients are:
- Informed- as they understand their health status and the treatment.
- Empowered- as they believe they can change their health outcomes.
- Heard- as they can communicate with their providers better and participate in shared decision-making.
What is a patient engagement platform (PEP)?
A patient engagement platform is an application that enables patients to interact with healthcare providers via their mobile device, tablet, or computer. The patient engagement platform keeps the patients involved beyond the four walls of the hospital.
When implemented effectively, patient engagement platforms can help streamline access to medical records, provide appointment reminders, enable self-scheduling for patients, and deliver patient education or awareness.
How do patient engagement platforms help?
Patient engagement platforms (PEPs) can help automate the following processes.
- Send reminders to patients regarding their postoperative treatment protocols
- Allow patients to update mobility reports and pain score
- Deliver educational content
- Manage images of wounds
- Record and monitor health vitals like BP, FBS, BMI, etc.
Read more: 7 major impacts of technology in healthcare
What are the benefits of a patient engagement platform?
1. Ease the patient engagement process
A customized patient engagement platform helps improve your patient experience by assisting them in scheduling medical appointments. It can also help notify patients about their next visit to the clinic, or when they need to check their health vitals, or when their current medication course will be over. In addition, caregivers can use the patient engagement platform to track a patient’s medical history and use the data to channelize treatment plans when the patient pays a second visit.
2. Enable caregivers to focus on core competencies
With a patient engagement platform in place, patients can fill in medical forms, electronically scan their insurance cards, and consent from their mobiles, laptops, or computers. It will allow healthcare providers to focus on their core competencies and saves patients from standing in queues or long wait times. In addition, it can expedite the care delivery process during an emergency.
Case Study: Fingent partnered with Casenet’s Advanced Solutions Group to develop TruCare Insights as a reliable population health management platform. Download Now!
3. Empower care providers to make informed decisions
Healthcare organizations can use information like satisfaction scores, online appointments, wait times, and ROI to make informed decisions related to staffing and identify opportunities for improvement. Custom patient engagement platforms allow clinicians to track all this information effectively. It goes a long way in supporting clinical decision-making.
4. Optimize healthcare throughput
Patient engagement platforms allow online registration that ensures patients have less waiting time in the clinic. It enables healthcare providers to attend to more patients in a given time and improve data accuracy and demographics. In addition, patient engagement platforms spare medical professionals from time-consuming and manual data management processes so that they get time to receive advanced medical training. Nurses, physicians, administrators, and other hospital staff members can streamline their communication, increase staff satisfaction, and utilize data analytics to make strategic decisions.
Benefits to the patients:
- Patients are aware of the next steps, such as diet plans, exercises, medication plans, or next clinical visit
- Consistent and transparent care will be available 24/7
- Augmented patient engagement and experience
- Improved communication lowers preoperative stress and anxiety
Case Study: How did a data analytics solution help NHS gain financial, clinical, and geographical insights to improve visibility over their KPIs? Read Now!
What to look for in a custom patient engagement platform?
Given the changes in patient behavior, expectations, and changing healthcare landscape, healthcare providers will have to ramp up patient engagement strategies and implement the latest engagement technologies. Patient engagement platforms must enable providers to determine the best ways to deploy their expertise and services to their patients.
Read more: Digital tools reshaping the healthcare industry
So, make sure the patient engagement platform has the following capabilities.
1. EMR integration
The patient engagement platform should integrate with Electronic Medical Records (EMR). For example, the platform should receive data from the EMR, such as a referral or recall, and revert to the EMR.
2. Sentiment analysis
The main aim of patient engagement is to understand patients on a deeper, emotional level. So, it is crucial to leverage sentiment analysis technology. This will enable providers to recognize when a patient is happy or frustrated and respond accordingly.
3. Real-time and interactive patient communication
The platform must encourage bidirectional communication, specifically text-based messaging. In short, patients must be able to communicate with their health system easily.
4. Chatbot functionality and keyword actions
The use of chatbots and keywords in patient engagement platforms is trending. It helps reduce human intervention. So, the patient engagement platform should allow for automated responses to common questions such as “where are you located?” The platform must also enable keywords to trigger automation, such as scheduling a ride for patients who need a lift.
Read more: 5 leading chatbot use cases explained with real-life examples
5. Patient on-boarding
The platform should drive patients to the patient portal and help them register quickly and conveniently to get medical support on time.
6. Integration with other vendors
A single app can’t solve it all. It is just not feasible and is also not in your patient’s best interests. Make sure that your patient engagement platform integrates seamlessly with your other vendors. For example, the platform can offer billing features or even integrate with medical billing software, medical invoice management software, etc.
7. Boost employee adoption
Your staff must like and accept the patient engagement platform. If they don’t appreciate the new technology, it won’t fulfill its potential. In addition, you must ensure that the patient engagement platform enjoys enterprise-wide adoption and has a user-friendly UX and UI.
8. Offer multilingual support
As not all patients speak English, you will have to ensure that the platform supports different languages used or spoken widely by your patients.
Read more: 5 essentials to an effective healthcare application
Why should you adopt a custom patient engagement platform?
A custom patient engagement platform is specifically developed for your organization to cover your unique healthcare requirements and cater to your internal processes.
As such a platform is built from scratch, it gives you the freedom of choice for technology. Additionally, you can easily integrate this platform with third-party systems because you get to control the code entirely. Also, you will have full ownership of the final product and customize the software according to any relevant changes in your organization.
Benefits of a custom patient engagement platform
- High scalability
- Seamless integration to your existing infrastructure
- Enables integration with any new services you are willing to include in your medical practice
- Freedom to choose the technology
- Gain full ownership of the resulting solution
Custom patient engagement platform is best suited for medical practices that:
- Offer a wide range of services
- Plan to expand in size and services
- Have rigid workflows that are difficult to adapt
- Want to integrate the new solution with the existing system
Read more: The application and impact of information technology in healthcare
Develop your custom patient engagement platform with Fingent
At Fingent, we have the expertise and work closely with you to build a custom patient engagement platform to suit your business needs. Our software development experts help you select the best web development frameworks, database and backend technologies, data visualization formats, and leading front-end technologies to develop your patient engagement platform or any medical software that you would require.
Fingent helps you develop healthcare application platforms tailored to your needs, with top features like appointment scheduling, medical billing, patient feedback management, payment processing, chatbot, and fundamental to in-depth analytics. To know more, please get in touch with us.
Technologies that help optimize revenue and performance of your medical practice
There’s no denying that revenue is essential for any business. Sustained revenue flow keeps the employees paid, leaves the doors open, and the patrons happy. It is the same for medical practice as well. However, it can be challenging to optimize medical practice revenue and increase avenues to bring in more money. It is crucial to find strategies that the medical practice can maintain over time to ensure a steady cash inflow.
Additionally, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to influence patient behaviors, it is pushing healthcare practices across the globe to re-evaluate their business operations and look for solutions that emphasize clinical efficiencies, improve patient revenue cycle management along with enhanced reporting and analytics tools.
Apart from the challenges related to the patient intake process during the pandemic, healthcare providers also have had to meet the sudden demand for virtual care by embracing digital healthcare technologies. Advanced technology in healthcare helps automate major processes, facilitate patient engagement efforts, and improve financial stability.
In this article, we share tips to optimize the revenue of your medical practice.
1. Robust financial management
Strong finance is the foundation of every business. You must consider what money is going out in the form of overhead costs, payroll, and miscellaneous expenses. Look for ways to cut unnecessary expenditures and save your practice some money.
There are chances that you are spending on something unnecessary at your practice or experiencing a small ROI due to a huge yet incompetent investment. If a service is not bringing you a good ROI, you should remove it. To overcome these issues, ensure you have a robust revenue cycle management system in place.
Custom RCM systems help improve the administrative and clinical functions associated with claims processing payments and revenue generation. The RCM system also facilitates the financial processes of identification, management, and collection between patients and providers. RCM helps you optimize your revenue cycle at all the points of the financial process. This enables you to collect and increase revenue whenever and wherever you should.
2. Leverage healthcare information technology
While the initial cost and ongoing investment may vary based on your practice, most of the following technological investments will help you save money and increase your revenue over time.
Read more: 7 Major Impacts of Technology in Healthcare
Example 1: Telehealth
Technologies like telehealth offer safer alternatives to in-person visits. With the ongoing pandemic, this technology helps provide safe care by connecting via virtual video visits. If your practice can allot for more appointments, then telehealth allows for more visits throughout your day.
Additionally, patient portals, self-check kiosks, and QR codes help reduce the risks of exposure and increase scheduling flexibility and clinical availability. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) helps bring about organizational resilience and stabilizes patient outcomes with better and safer alternatives to in-person visits.
Example 2: Appointment Management Systems
Most medical practices lose revenue due to no-shows, missed appointments, or late cancellations. Appointment management systems ensure that patients are notified well ahead of their appointment times. This will eventually provide your practice with a better chance of fulfilling appointment times and retaining revenue. It will also improve patient trust and credibility and allow your medical staff to stay organized at work.
Example 3: Practice Management System
This system includes all your appointment scheduling, billing, patient registration, claims processing, clearinghouse integration, and more. So, investing in an intelligent practice management system can bring billing in-house and retain previously claimed revenue from outsourcing.
Read more: Digital Tools For The Future Of Healthcare Providers
3. Intuitive reporting and automation
An Electronic Health Record(EHR) system includes an array of innovative tools that can significantly impact your practice’s productivity and profitability. The EHR technology should also have tools that offer flexible functionality and interactive engagement in addition to simple record keeping so that you can focus more on patient care and waste less time on troubleshooting staff errors or reconfiguring documentation notes.
Additionally, automated workflows, comprehensive reporting features, and insightful productivity metrics help simplify your practice’s workload and streamline task management. Picklists allow you to create templates, line-item defaults and define column choices so that information is readily available and easily accessible.
4. Optimize your medical billing
To maximize your medical practice’s revenue, you must include efficient and personalized medical billing software. It allows you to optimize the bills according to the prevalent industry standards. Most practices bill patients at allowable lower levels to avoid being audited. While you may not get audited, the practice leaves behind a lot of money. So, when you provide clinical service, make sure to document it properly and bill customers appropriately. Medical billing software makes auditing easy and relieves your admins from revenue management challenges. The software also ensures that your billing and coding staff are not making mistakes, leading to significant claims denial.
If claims denials, coding errors, or any other billing issues keep your practice from optimizing the income, you may consider building customized software to handle your organization’s specific challenges. Fingent specializes in developing customized medical billing software and healthcare application platforms by working closely with your medical practice. It allows you to lower denial rates, reduce errors, and streamline your revenue cycle.
5. Security and compliance
When it comes to healthcare, efficiency matters not just at the surface level but in every single aspect of treatment, including financing, scheduling, and reporting. To ensure your EHR can keep up with the regular system, it should include an educational database that allows providers to quickly train their staff and give the patient access to explanatory articles and videos. Keeping these resources available will help bring about positive outcomes and hassle-free software maintenance. Fingent offers custom software development, testing, implementation, maintenance, and support services for healthcare service providers. We’ve partnered with organizations like NHS to help them improve clinical process management using technology.
While compliance laws ensure patient health information (PHI) and overall safety of practice operations, you must make cybersecurity a top priority. This is especially true now with the shift to working remotely. Employees are more prone to hacker’s attempts to cease connectivity and steal confidential data. To overcome this, you must use virtual private networks (VPN) and reliable firewall software to safeguard vital business information. Our network security and IT infrastructure management services ensure that your business-critical assets are protected from cyber threats, and your proprietary information is protected 24/7.
Read more: The Application and Impact of Information Technology in Healthcare
Advanced technology in healthcare has helped providers choose and select a system that benefits their business. For example, medical billing software, revenue cycle management, appointment management, and patient engagement systems are a few solutions that providers should consider when employing an EHR solution. Healthcare technology improves patient resolutions, avoids preventable errors, and expands clinical availability.
Practice is a step ahead of theory. Our healthcare IT system developers follow this rule of thumb. Connect with our team to learn more about the technologies you can adopt to gain business benefits and significant cost savings.
A list of 5 popular open-source ERPs that support healthcare equipment suppliers
The global healthcare expenditure is anticipated to rise at a CAGR of 5% till 2023. The healthcare industry can, therefore, look at a bright future. Medical equipment suppliers have to deal with various challenges. They have to ensure that all products comply with the regulatory guidelines, are of high quality, and are entirely traceable. Robust ERP systems can help medical equipment suppliers to gather insights from data to make quick decisions. Let’s take a look at some of the open-source ERP systems out there that are suitable for SMEs.
1. Odoo ERP
Odoo is an open-source ERP platform that allows ease of deployment. This is specifically helpful for SMEs that do not have dedicated IT infrastructure. The flexibility helps integration of different business processes and systems. Odoo for medical equipment suppliers is a comprehensive ERP solution that helps manage financials and operations with ease.
The core modules of Odoo like Accounting, Project Management, and Inventory Management make it suitable for medical equipment suppliers. Developers can create custom third-party apps to meet the specific needs of a medical equipment supplier. Odoo offers more than 10,000 apps to meet most business needs. Fingent is an official partner of Odoo with years of experience in implementing, customizing, and providing consultation for clients. As an Odoo development company, Fingent has catered to the needs of various customers and streamlined their operations. Our motto of increasing efficiency and ease-of-use has made us a popular choice among various organizations for Odoo implementation requirements.
Read more: 5 Salient Features of Odoo that Make it a Reliable ERP for Enterprises
2. ERPNext
ERPNext is a contemporary ERP solution that allows you to focus on delivering medical equipment of high-quality by effortlessly managing your supply chains. It enables you to intelligently track orders, monitor stock levels, implement promotions, and minimize errors in inventory sourcing. You can leverage the numerous built-in integrations offered by ERPNext and start supplying in no time. With ERPNext, you can have real-time updates on the movement of equipment, control equipment transfers within different warehouses, and generate required reports quickly and easily. You can also create your customized software on-the-fly without any code.
3. Epicor
Medical equipment suppliers have to deal with difficult delivery timelines, complicated pricing arrangements, unique inventory, oversee seller agreements, and concessions. Epicor ERP solution enables you to carry out all your operations with ease. The Epicor Prophet 21 ERP is specifically designed for supply and distribution. This user-friendly ERP system can help suppliers maximize profits and scale without limits. Epicor allows you to integrate all your business applications with RESTful API. You can also automatically manage your warehouses with Epicor Prophet 21. This helps in the smooth running of all processes in your warehouse. This, in turn, improves precision enabling you to provide better services to your customers.
Epicor Commerce Connect helps you to create and maintain an online presence which is the need of the hour. The increased visibility across the supply chain helps medical equipment suppliers even forecast demand.
Read more: ERP or Digital Transformation: The Best Technology Solution For Your Enterprise
4. Microsoft Dynamics 365
Microsoft Dynamics 365 combines the best practices of Microsoft’s ERP, CRM, and BI solutions into a single product that is cloud-based. These features enable the system to scale and grow along with your business. Capabilities like Material Resource Planning and Vendor Self-Service Help minimize vendor lead times and inventory carrying costs. The fully automated warehouse management system (WMS) helps optimize your warehouse space, labor, and resources.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 gives medical device suppliers full visibility across the entire supply chain and the ability to track information and job at all touchpoints. This helps improve efficiency, reduce expenses, and promote smooth communication within different segments of the medical device industry supply chain. As a medical device supplier, you need to understand who has purchased the device from you and whether it has come back for service. You have to take information from different systems and combine those to give meaningful reporting. You also may have to rework your inventory according to changes in regulations. Microsoft Dynamics 365 allows you to be unique in the medical device industry because that’s what gives you the edge.
Read more: ERP E-commerce
5. Oracle NetSuite
Oracle Netsuite is proven to be a very mature SaaS solution that brings in next-level integration and seamless nature to the table. Though NetSuite is ideal for SMEs who can leverage the relatively low-cost entry point, many enterprise-level companies are also considering Netsuite due to the scalability that it provides. Oracle NetSuite helps medical device suppliers to react to the diverse market and deal with different customer bases and different routes-to-market. NetSuite helps you reduce indirect costs and get through the maze of the regulatory framework by allowing modifications and customizations. You get one central source of information that helps simplify the complexities of the medical device business. The flexibility that Oracle NetSuite offers, helps the medical equipment industry to adapt to the changes in customer demand and provide them with what they want and when they want.
Read more: 5 Reasons to Integrate Your E-commerce Application with Odoo ERP
Conclusion
Analyses of the medical equipment supplies and distribution industry show that companies that have demonstrated the ability to leverage cloud computing and ERP have increased their profitability and revenue. This was achieved as a result of seamless integration of all business processes which enabled real-time financial and operational visibility, better cost management structures, improved forecasting and revenue tracking, and the ability to access data from anywhere.
A large number of medical equipment suppliers usually are small to medium-sized businesses, where the one-off system automation model proves to be inefficient. Cloud-based ERP systems eliminates the old standalone computer systems and replaces them with a single, unified software program. Thus, someone in Finance can easily look into the Warehouse software to check if an order is shipped. ERP cloud computing can help you see exactly where your business is, at any second of the day. You can see how much revenue you’ve earned for the day, how much inventory you have, how you are trending over previous days, months, and years.
Read more: A 3 day Odoo CRM implementation story!
Cloud-based ERP systems becoming the rage for medical equipment suppliers, it’s high time that you too invest in one, if not done already. Fingent helps you leverage the benefits of the open-source ERP systems mentioned above by understanding your unique business requirements. Because we know that this uniqueness is what gives you that competitive edge. Contact us to know more about how your business can benefit from ERP integration.
Paperwork is the bane of most enterprises seeking productivity and efficiency improvements, to reduce their operational costs and become more competitive. While a certain amount of paperwork remains inevitable owing to statutory regulations and the need to preserve important documents in a physical format, the spread of internet gave a big push to electronic records and workflows, reducing paperwork drastically. Now, the advent of mobility has propelled a second wave of the “paperwork revolution,” where intuitive mobile apps eliminate the conventional work processes that create paperwork in the first place.
Mobility contributes to a lean and agile enterprise, where wasteful paperwork is eliminated. Manual processes are time-consuming, resource intensive, and error-prone. The digital capture of information, through smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices generate both direct and spin- off benefits. The elimination of manual processes accelerates the pace of work and improves accuracy. When smartphones capture the information automatically, in audio or video form, perform the required calculations or processing automatically in the backend, and transmits the required information to the relevant stakeholder, in the correct format, there is no scope for errors or even perceptive biases creeping in. The indirect benefit includes better sales and ROI, improved customer satisfaction, and better employee morale.
The effectiveness of mobility in reducing paperwork may be best understood by delving into two key areas where mobility has already succeeded in eliminating paperwork – field based operations and healthcare.
Mobility in Fieldwork
The development of mobile apps have transformed field service operations, be it servicing and repair of machinery, compliance visits, marketing calls, or anything else. Intuitive mobile apps keep track of field employee movements, keep all stakeholders updated in real time, render transparency to each step of the process, auto-generate and auto-populate the required form, transmit the required forms to the relevant authorities, all automatically. The net result is vastly reduced, or even total elimination of manual paperwork.
Process automation and technician self-service eliminate many clerical roles by eliminating the associated paperwork. For instance, when field service staff makes recordings on mobile apps during service calls, the information transmits seamlessly and automatically without the need to decipher handwritten documentation and enter them into appropriate systems manually, at a later stage.
At the ground level, mobility has successfully eliminated paperwork in most field service operations, as evident from the fact only 22% of best-in-class enterprises continue to use paper-based processes in their field service operations.
Mobile Apps for Physicians and Healthcare Operations
The drag paperwork causes are much underestimated. For instance, paperwork takes up as much as a third of a physician’s workday, the time can be better spent on treating more patients or indulging in some other professional or creative pursuits. In many places, physicians are required to do daily rounds and note down individual details of patients on paper. Many physicians, hard pressed for time, skip key processes, leading to incomplete billing and the hospital losing millions in revenue, over time.
Mobility solutions enable physicians and other employees capture information digitally through their smartphones, doing away with record writing and paper-based forms, and thereby eliminating administrative and procedural drags. Mobility solutions auto-populates forms, and does all the calculations and processing in the backend, reducing paperwork drastically. Healthcare stakeholders gain freedom from the piles of charts, billing forms, and various other procedural rigmaroles multiple health insurance companies impose on a daily basis.
Empirical evidence suggests a big boost for efficiency and hospital revenues increasing by about 20%, on the introduction of mobility apps that aid and automates routine tasks.
Storing customer or patient records electronically in the cloud, accessible through mobile apps on a need basis reduces the cost of maintaining physical records, the cost to store such records, and the hassles involved in safeguarding such records. Such apps communicate with hospital servers, read all relevant information such as patient history, billing, and insurance from the organization’s database, and convey such data to caregivers at the time of consultation, all automatically, and without a shred of paper involved in the process.
Mobility solutions also do away with the delay and inconvenience when such records are required at a different location from where it is stored. Reporting and administrative workloads get lighter across the board, allowing employees to spend more time and focus their energies on their core competencies. Improved accuracies lead to better ROI as the revenue related documentation does not slip through the cracks, and improved customer satisfaction as there is no ambiguity and all interaction are recorded accurately.
Mobility in a Run of the Mill Enterprise
Paperwork, combined with manual processes are the number one reason for errors and inefficiencies and contribute to wasteful overheads in a big way. The development of highly intuitive mobile apps eliminates paperwork in a big way. However, success depends on developing apps that serve the purpose well, understand the underlying business process, and developing apps that offer relevant solutions that are an improvement on the present situation.
Very often, paperwork gives rise to more paperwork. The need to buy paper, for instance, to send letters would create a new paper-based requisition form and invoices. When the required information is simply captured digitally and sends an email or text message, it is not just the actual process where the paperwork is eliminated, but the entire work chain is eliminated.
Many businesses start with a good intent but inevitably fall back to manual or paper ridden processes. This is owing to lack of key integrations that facilitate a seamless customer journey through the electronic channel. Effective mapping of the user journey to understand the interactions and touchpoints between users and business process goes a long way in preempting paperwork and manual processes.
Mobility helps to reduce paperwork and bring to the table several benefits, but only if the mobile systems are designed right and implemented well. For best results, rope in a strategic partner who is strong in delivering cutting edge mobile apps that serve the desired purpose.
Healthcare professionals, without a doubt, need some of the most sophisticated and specialized technologies for their trade. Considering the importance of even minutes or seconds in such a profession, getting quick access to patient records, disease or condition related information and the like, can help a great deal in saving valuable time. Be it mobile devices and applications, or regular devices like the stethoscope and pressure testing cuffs, it should have features that address the unique needs of healthcare professionals.
Here are some features that can be included in a healthcare application or device, that can make work for healthcare professionals much easier:
Security Features
A lot of healthcare professionals these days have moved to Electronic Medical Records (EMR), which has increased the demand for security. There is a need to incorporate high-end security features to protect valuable patient data, in the event of such sharing of resources through dashboards and the cloud. Here are some popular and useful features that can be made to be a part of healthcare devices:
– full disc encryption
– a certified smart card reader
– a trusted platform module
These help in protecting both the organization’s as well as the patient’s data, while at the same time providing anytime, anywhere access to important information.
Efficiency-Enhancing Features
A number of hardware features like, audio capture capabilities, with noise cancellation to support leading edge voice-recognition software, can be very useful for healthcare professionals in taking notes even when their hands are full. A built-in barcode reader can help in quick, effective and positive patient-to-patient medication information matching. These features allow health practitioners to be more effective in terms of treatment and care. To a large extent these features also allow health professionals to be more proactive in their approach towards patients as well. Often, patients’ questions and issues can be addressed even before they arise, thanks to such smart features.
Here, efficiencies are achieved in terms of day-to-day activities as well as on an overall basis. Together, they contribute towards more optimized work flows, more savings in time and money, and thus, more personal and focused attention to patients.
External Hardware
Considering the in-hospital environment and the various scenarios that the health professionals may go through, there are certain external device features that may come in useful. Apart from the basic requirements of being handy and lightweight, there is a need for health devices used by clinicians to be sturdy and robust. Devices that pass the standard MIL-STD Drop testing might be most appropriate.
Dust and water resistance properties (as per IP 54 ) for their devices can also prove to be useful for the doctors. Antimicrobial coating on the device protects the device from obvious infections as the doctor treats different patients. They will also have to be cleaned with several sanitizing solutions for the best of all users.
Above all these, healthcare professionals need constant and seamless communication among their colleagues as well as among various departments. They need systems that encompass various locations, from in-patient units to out-patient units to operation theaters to labs. They also need different means of communication in their tools, like video calls, emails, text and multimedia messages and the like.
Healthcare devices and tools used by professionals can become one of the main contributors of effective care in organizations if they have the right features. Hardware and software features are both important factors affecting the efficiency of a device or application. Once the right set of features are incorporated, they have to be constantly evaluated and validated, to ensure that only the best development practices and standards are adhered to, so as to maintain a fundamental level of quality and safety, and also to keep the system updated.
The healthcare industry is already half way through a huge transition, leading to more effective and efficient healthcare practices. I’m talking about Electronic Health Records (EHR), the much-needed change that healthcare organizations were looking for, at one point of time. As with any technology, they needed some time for the people to get adapted to it.
Now, a few years into its introduction, there are still mixed reviews regarding its benefits. According to an EHR user satisfaction survey by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), only about half of the respondents were satisfied with their EHR systems on the whole. The survey also showed that many EHR providers had scope for improvements along with some of the main features that doctors found most useful.
So how can you make sure that the healthcare system you are planning to adopt will provide the required results? How can you make sure that you don’t end up being a dissatisfied healthcare application user?
Here are 5 essential elements that you need to consider while looking for an effective healthcare application:
- Customization – An effective healthcare application should be capable of being customized to the specific needs of an organization or a physician’s practice. Only then can it help in improving patient care, without creating even more work for you and your employees. An off-the-shelf healthcare system may need extra modifications from your side in order to be effective. According to the AAFP survey, 78% of the users were satisfied with the customization capabilities of their EHR systems. Hence, it is one of the most important factors to look for in any good healthcare application.
- Integration – This is an extension of the customization factor because, with customization you can make sure that your healthcare application is well integrated into the organization or practice workflow, the accounting and revenue management functions. A fully integrated system can streamline the entire process of health care right from scheduling appointments to processing payments and checkout. As all the processes get automated, it becomes much easier for your employees to keep track of patients, allowing them to concentrate on patient care.
- Software support – According to the AAFP survey, only 39% of the respondents were satisfied with the support and training they received from the EHR vendors, which shows how important customer service is to users. A majority of them were least satisfied with the software support. This means that customer service and support makes a huge difference in the overall satisfaction level of the software users, and as a healthcare practitioner, wouldn’t you want software support to be at your constant beck and call in case you need help?
- Connectivity – The survey showed that about 70% of the respondents found the e-prescribing and electronic messaging functionalities of their current healthcare system as most beneficial and satisfying. These are two functions that play important roles in improving the speed and quality of care delivered to the patients, thereby improving patient satisfaction. Such capabilities and link ups with pharmacies can help decrease the number of patients who are reluctant to fill out prescription forms to get their medicines and bring up the effectiveness in patient care. Hence, you need to make sure that you have enough connections to make treatment easier for your patients in every possible way.
- Quick implementation – The implementation and training process of your healthcare application should be quite quick, so that they don’t cause disruptions in your work and practice. Cloud-based systems can actually help you save on the high costs as well as the IT efforts of installation. It should also be easy to use as you need to finish off your staff training quickly and efficiently.
These basic factors can help you find the right healthcare solution for your organization’s needs and it can be a start to improving patient satisfaction and quality of care, today, as well as in the long run.
Looking for the perfect solution to improve patient care in your organization? Our healthcare application experts can help.