Digitization and efficient use of IT are now keys to improving healthcare. Providers now use IT to reorganize processes, boost clinicians’ productivity, improve diagnosis, and offer more personalized care. However, as more applications are deployed, enterprise information systems are installed, and mobile technologies are adopted, there’s a need to streamline and manage IT effectively. This post will highlight principles and strategies that CIOs and IT team leaders can use for effective medical IT management.
1. Employ and Keep Top IT Talent
The performance of your health IT depends on the quality of talent running it. There’s no other way to ensure that your health IT department is productive without hiring, training, and motivating experienced and certified professionals.
In large healthcare organizations, the demands on IT staff are tremendous. Networks must be kept up and running 24/7. All computer systems, scanners, mobile devices must be kept functional at all times. Any extended downtime could lead to life-threatening situations.
Similarly, programmers and developers are under pressure to deliver solutions within tight deadlines. Without hiring top talent, most large providers will not keep up with the demands of modern, digitally-driven healthcare.
2. Create an Effective Archiving Backup and Recovery Strategy
Your organization captures and produces a considerable amount of data every month. The volume of data produced is enormous, including appointment scheduling, medical test results, diagnosis, treatment plans, billing details, and follow-up communication with patients.
This data must be managed carefully for two significant reasons:
- To provide a complete medical history for accurate diagnosis
- To comply with regulations on data retention, interoperability, etc.
It is vital to develop a reliable backup and recovery strategy to preserve each patient’s medical details. Preferably, use an automated backup and archiving solution for all patient data. Data should be stored in a remote archive to ensure that your EHR can be reactivated quickly if there’s a breach, system glitch, or natural disaster.
3. Create an Integration Strategy
A modern health IT system is a combination of different information systems. For most providers, some or all of the following information systems are needed to run their facilities and deliver high-quality patient care:
- Electronic health record systems
- Practice management system
- Billing and financial management system
- Lab information management system
- Radiology information management system
- Pharmacy information systems
These systems are usually developed by different vendors using disparate technologies. But for efficient patient care, these systems need to communicate.
That’s why, beginning with the EHR, it is essential to develop an integration strategy. Integration makes it possible for EHRs to communicate with pharmacy information systems and lab management systems.
Physicians can make e-prescriptions and order lab tests online, saving costs and time and eliminating transcription errors.
5. Focus on Improving Clinician Productivity
One of the goals of health IT is to improve the quality of care and care outcomes. To achieve this, health IT professionals need to work hand-in-hand with clinicians, nurses, doctors, medical assistants, and other IT end-users.
It is vital to receive regular feedback from clinicians on the use, performance, simplicity, and effectiveness of any software, tool, or device to improve clinician productivity. Some of the ways to help clinicians become more productive include:
- System integration
- Provision of voice-to-text data capture
- Improvement of network speed
- Provision of mobile apps and interfaces to view EHRs, test results, and communicate with patients
Managing healthcare IT can be a demanding and challenging task. Suppose you want to improve the quality of service from your IT team and obtain a better return on your organization’s IT investment. In that case, it is better to partner with a reputable health IT management firm.
Connect With a Medical IT Management Firm Today
Call MediQuant today at 844.286.8683 to discuss all your health data management needs. Visit our contact page to book a free consultation or see a free demo of our IT management solutions.
