The thing that has fueled the progress of human civilization more than anything else has been the advancement of technology. Of all the different things that new technology can impact, healthcare is perhaps the most important. The quality of healthcare can of course determine whether a person lives or dies.
Recently, there have been a number of new and emerging technologies that are changing the management of hospitals. Below are five you should pay attention to.
Electronic Medical Records
Electronic medical records, or EMRs for short, have been a revelation for hospital management. Since a patient’s health records now exist as digital files, a lot of overhead related to the clerical work concerning physical paper documents has been eliminated entirely. Exchanging data between a patient’s doctors is also now easier than ever before.
Vendor Management Software
Something else a hospital or other healthcare enterprise may find very useful is vendor management software. A hospital has to maintain a plethora of different vendor relationships to ensure that doctors and nurses have access to the equipment, tools, drugs and supplies they need to do their work effectively. Vendor management software can help make the management of these relationships simple and efficient.
Remote Health Monitoring
Staying overnight in a hospital can be extremely expensive. However, certain patients require round the clock observation. One thing that may help bridge that gap and bring down costs is remote health monitoring. With the use of wearable health monitoring devices, information regarding a patient’s condition can be sent through a wireless internet connection to doctors in a hospital while the patient remains at home.
Cloud Powered PACS
Something very important to a hospital is medical imagery such as X-rays, MRIs, CAT scans and more. PACS, Picture Archiving and Communication System, is what a hospital uses to create, distribute and manage those medical images. With the use of cloud powered software, PACS is quicker and more efficient than ever before.
Big Data
Thanks to hospitals becoming ingrained into the digital world, more data can be collected regarding hospital patients, processes and procedures than ever before. This data can then be analyzed by powerful big data analytics software to find ways to make the service of patients more efficient and effective.
Technology is constantly advancing. As it does, healthcare and hospital management will improve in tandem. Patients are certain to benefit from the fact this technology will allow them to receive better care and service than what would be possible without it.