THE IMPORTANCE OF TIME IN HEALTHCARE?
What is time?
In a life-or-death situation, every second counts, so hospitals rely on precise time. To avoid potentially fatal consequences, doctors and nurses are legally required to record every minute of patient care. In hospitals, accurate time is especially important for drug administration.
Inside the healthcare industry, accurate time can mean the difference between life and death. Time is used in many different processes and systems in their medical facility, regardless of its size or scope, and ensuring its precision will improve patient care and efficiency.
Wasted time in the healthcare system contributes to overcrowding in emergency departments and anxious patients waiting in hallways for beds.It contributes to the underlying reasons why patients may be denied the best available care.
How is time so important “especially in the healthcare industry” ?
Time management not only involves a systematic approach within your busy and stressful workday, but it also makes it possible for you to block out time to do work-related tasks that are not positive and may be necessary (such as professional development or mental health downtime). If you wait for downtime in healthcare, you might get lucky once every two weeks – there is always something more important to do. However, if you are deliberate, realistic, and creative in how you want to manage your time, even a hectic healthcare schedule will accommodate your needs and goals.
Some management strategies for healthcare.
Strategic management in healthcare is the process of defining your organisation’s future, setting goals to move you toward that future, and determining the major projects you’ll undertake to meet those goals. It also entails maintaining that strategy focus for three to five years.
Time management is the practice of organising your day according to tasks. Working in the reactionary and often-hectic healthcare industry requires you to be flexible within your schedule so you can attend to unexpected issues without losing structure for the rest of the day.
There are a few things you can do to improve your time management skills and help you create a time management plan. Because these abilities do not appear out of nowhere, a few of these techniques also serve as habits to commit to and incorporate into your weekly calendar.
Strategies for healthcare in emr management:
EMRs, depending on how they are managed, can either increase efficiency or become a major impediment.Clinicians will have quick access to complete patient information for effective diagnosis when EMRs are properly managed. However, poor EMR management can result in disrupted workflow, data retrieval issues, and physician burnout. Here are some effective EMR management strategies to implement in order to reap the full benefits of your organisation’s investment in an EMR.
1. Give Proper Data Security Available:
EMRs contain personally identifiable health information (PHI). Names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, and patient medical histories are examples of PHI.
The data in your EMR must be carefully protected against unauthorised access and hacking. Remember that if the information is leaked, your company or practice could face a costly lawsuit.In addition to safeguarding your EMR against unauthorised access, you must also safeguard information transmitted via email, HL7 interfaces, or APIs. Investigate the security and protection offered by any vendor or software that wants to interface with your EMR.
2. Maintain Data Consistency:
Clinicians must enter data correctly in order for the EMR to be a reliable source of patient data. Using medical terms, keywords, and drug codes consistently is an excellent way to reduce data entry errors.
Using the same codes and medical terms will help to avoid confusion and incorrect diagnosis. It will also make it easier to use EMR data for analytics.
3. Relate EMR to Other Systems:
To be effective, the EMR must be linked to other health information systems. For example, your EMR should include interfaces that allow it to communicate directly with a lab information system, practise management system, and billing system.
With an integrated EMR, doctors can place lab test orders directly from an interface that receives patient data from the EMR. The interface significantly reduces transcription and ordering errors, as well as the time required to process orders.
Integrated EMRs also allow you to check a claim’s eligibility with a provider before ordering a test or a specific treatment procedure.
4. Establish a plan for a data backup and recovery plan:
Most EHR vendors include a backup feature in their products. However, you must fine-tune it to ensure that it is reliable and simple to use when required.
A backup must also adhere to HIPAA regulations on PHI security and other state health data regulations. Determine the location of backups and ensure that they are encrypted and secure.
Incorporate your EMR data backup into a larger data security strategy. If hackers attack your system, your data recovery plan must be capable of restoring your system to operational status in a reasonable amount of time.
5. Use an Active Archive for Privacy Protection:
Following a merger, acquisition, or significant information system change, your organisation may retain one or more legacy EHRs. Maintaining data in multiple record systems is costly and time-consuming. Manual processing will also be required for information retrieval.
Rather than maintaining multiple EHRs, it is preferable to migrate data from legacy systems into a single active archive. This is a more secure method of storing old medical records. After that, data retrieval will take a few seconds rather than several days.
An EMR system that is properly maintained will provide benefits such as increased efficiency, lower operational costs, and better patient care. Using the strategies listed above can benefit your company.
