Today’s healthcare professionals rely on integrated software solutions like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) because they help them to deliver better service to their patients. In fact, hospitals wouldn’t be able to run efficiently without a knowledge-based IT system such as ERP in place. Doctors and nurses do an amazing job looking after their patients, but even highly educated, talented people like clinicians need the right infrastructure to work well.
Why Use ERP in a Healthcare Setting?
ERP was originally designed for the manufacturing industry and solved many of the operational problems associated with developing goods. As the technology evolved, ERP became sophisticated enough to handle more applications, which is why it has since been adopted by many other industries, including the healthcare sector.
The healthcare industry is ultimately about the well-being of patients, but it involves more than just doctor-patient interactions. There is a need to have technology in place that can cope with storing and delivering medical data across multiple departments. ERP can facilitate this process.
These are some of the reasons for deploying ERP in the healthcare industry:
Improving effectiveness and efficiency of patient care
Improving patient safety
Improving IT infrastructure capabilities
Improving administrative processes
Strengthening clinical strategic positioning
Monitoring cost trends
Information Management
Healthcare organizations manage large amounts of information on a daily basis, so they need a fully integrated system to operate optimally. Healthcare systems rely on data from multiple sources to delegate duties like home care and chronic care. If there were several systems operating independently, some of the information could be delayed or could get lost, which would significantly reduce the patients’ quality of care. ERP solutions can combine these processes so that patients’ needs don’t get overlooked.
Better Care
All physicians want to give their patients the best care possible, and having the right tools in place allows them to do that. When a patient is admitted to hospital in an emergency, it’s vital that those on the front desk have all his or her up-to-date medical information on hand. This will help clinicians to give the right diagnosis, offer the best treatments and deliver the best care to the patient.
Furthermore, an ERP system can be helpful to visiting relatives because the front desk is the first port of call. When family members arrive at the hospital, sometimes they know very little about why their loved one has been admitted. If the person on the front desk can tell the relatives what they want to know, the level of care is extended beyond the patient.
Inventory Management
Hospitals wouldn’t be able to function without the right materials, but when staff is tasked with staying on top of inventory, it is often time-consuming and it’s possible to forget to order something important like surgical instruments. ERP eliminates the human error factor by automating this process.
Reduce Costs
ERP is an integrated software solution that can help healthcare facilities to identify cost reduction solutions, reduce risks, enhance managerial reports and anticipate results. And it doesn’t end there. It can also reduce operational costs by decreasing the number of workers needed to manage the processes for patient registration, transfer, discharge and billing.
Since the healthcare sector began implementing ERP in the 1980s and 90s, hospitals and clinics have become more productive and the quality of patient care appears to have improved.