By George Hyland
Running a healthcare business is complex, and given that you’re constantly in demand, efficiency is everything.
Thankfully, there have been many advancements in the last few years that have greatly improved the ways in which practices can optimize their day-to-day, but with so many moving parts in an organization like this, it can be difficult to know where to begin.
This article will get you started: today, you’ll learn about five clever ways to improve and offer your patients exactly what they need when they need it.
1. Virtual Healthcare Assistants
One of the major burdens on a lot of healthcare practices is administrative tasks, such as scheduling appointments, managing cancellations, verifying patient insurance, and so on. While each of these tasks is relatively small, they add up significantly in daily practice, and it’s easy for your admin team to become swamped.
A healthcare virtual assistant can help: this isn’t some sort of new AI or digital assistant, but essentially a specialized team that can handle your practice's healthcare admin remotely. This can free up a huge amount of time (and reduce stress) so that your team can focus on other matters that require their immediate attention.
2. Telemedicine services
Telemedicine has been around for a while, but it really took off after the pandemic. A telemedicine consultation is essentially a virtual consultation via one of the popular video conferencing platforms like Skype or Zoom; while there will be many instances where a patient must be examined in the office, there are plenty of scenarios where this isn’t the case, and by conducting the visit virtually, you free up time for both yourselves and the patient.
It can be great for initial screening protocols, or sessions where you’re not performing any direct medical care but are simply getting to know the patient. For people who stuggle to leave the house or are living with disability, the service can be invaluable.
3. Staff training protocols
Most of the points in this list discuss some form of technology for improving efficiency, but one of the most important aspects in this area has to do with how equipped your staff are.
In many organizations, staff only go through their initial training and then, unfortunately, are not pushed to develop further. As you periodically introduce fresh ways of doing things and new technology, it’s critical that you take the time to properly train your staff. Moreover, compliance regulations and best practices also alter over time, so in order to make sure your patients are getting the best care possible, you all need to make a collective effort to stay up to date.
New training could come in the form of full training programs in a given area once every few months, or it can be as simple as making sure staff have engaged with the tutorials that are provided for a new piece of gear.
4. Automated admin
Thanks to the innovations involved with artificial intelligence (AI), there are now many tools available that offer a deep, structured approach to managing admin to lessen the burden on your staff.
Even if you utilize the virtual assistants described above, there will still be admin work that should be completed in-house, and properly organizing this stuff can make the difference between an efficient practice and a sloppy one.
For example, you could use AI-powered chatbots for managing patent inquiries, and there’s also invoice processing available to get through the billing process with ease.
5. Electronic health records
If there’s one thing you need to manage very carefully as a healthcare business, it’s healthcare records. These documents form the backbone of any healthcare organization, and given the highly sensitive data contained within, you need a secure, robust way of managing them.
An electronic health records system is a must in this day and age. Rather than risking having your patient’s records get lost or damaged because of their physicality, a digital system safely stores, backs up, and protects records, and organizes them in a way that’s intuitive for the end user.
Wrapping up
Ultimately, there are dozens of small ways you can improve the working efficiency of your healthcare business, with the above five methods only representing a fraction. That said, every organization has to start somewhere, and these tools and services are the perfect place to start.
Start small with little tweaks and go from there – you’d be surprised at the extent to which seemingly minor changes can add up to make a big difference.
