| Kishore Shinde |
There has been rapid expansion in medical science in past few years along with a remarkable growth of awareness concerning the kind of treatment the patients undergo in the hospitals. Today, the patients demand thorough investigation, second opinion and even request explanations from doctors regarding their course of healing.
All hospitals face tremendous challenges in optimising their hospital operations these days. Tighter and more intricate reimbursement necessities, ongoing staff shortages, rising HR cost, and most importantly challenges in the IT scenario – affect operations and the bottom line. The medium and small sized hospitals, with their limited resources are particularly challenged to optimise their hospital operations to improve revenue cycle management and reimbursement.
Current scenario
| Requisite areas which a software should cover There has to be seamless integration of administration, medical records and accounts. |
Most of the small beded (upto 30 beds) hospitals are doctor owned where both husband and wife are medical professionals. The diagnostic and investigations are mostly outsourced in this case. The medium size hospitals (30 to 50 beds) are doctor owned or formed by a consortium of doctors who come together to form a multispeciality set up. In this arrangement the owners want the performance of the hospitals, individual department revenue generation, discounts trends at their finger tips.
Small and medium size hospitals face number of challenges in competing with the quality of larger hospitals. Providing similar facilities with same infrastructure and without increasing cost is one of the major challenges. Smaller budgets have typically made it difficult for them to afford certain technologies and some areas have limited technology resources too.
Common challenges faced by small and medium size hospitals are
- Challenges in professional planning and administration
- High staff turnover
- Challenges in strategy development for improvement of services
- Fast changing healthcare industry requirements and norms
- Training of new resources
- Financial constraints for growth
Challenges faced at operational level:
- Getting instant patient information
- Efficient and error – free billing
- Efficient duty scheduling
- TPA claims tracking
- Standalone applications for e.g.(Pathology, Billing, Pharmacy) bought from different vendors leading to inconsistency
- Controlling pilferages
- Controlling frauds
| In a single vision all the important patient data in these zones should be accessible. Features that should be covered in individual areas |
It’s no secret that information technology is changing the background of healthcare. All across the care continuum, today’s providers are collaborating and exchanging data in innovative ways. These accomplishments are especially demanding for medium and small sized hospitals, where lean budgets and limited human resources often present greater obstacles.
What to look for in the software for your hospital
- Ease of use to the staff ( User friendliness)
- CIA : Confidentiality + Integrity + Availability of Data
- Compliance and statutory reports
- Easy backup and restore
- Good customer support from vendors
RxOffice HMS is an integrated software with modular and scalable solutions to meet the hospital requirements. The heart of RxOffice HMS is seamless integration of administration, medical records and accounts.
RxOffice HMS, with a client-base in excess of 160 hospitals at different geographies and of different sizes (10 beds to 200 beds) in Maharashtra has an advantage of having workflows, suitable to the needs of every client.
RxOffice HMS assists the user to have streamlined operations, enhanced administrative capability, provide best patient care, reduced cost and enhanced profits.
| RxOffice Software Features |
| Easy Patient Search A patient can be searched in the system by different criteria’s. For Example Patient ID, Patient First and Last Name, Admitted Only, Blood Group wise, Doctor-wise etc. Once the patient is selected all the patient information like, when the patient was admitted, under which doctor, Current Bed status, whether the patient has insurance cover/ TPA, all these details shoots up in a single screen. |
RxOffice HMS includes modules such as:
- Appointment scheduling
- Patient registration, billing and insurance
- Medical records
- Hospital administration
- Duty scheduling
- Operation theatre management
- Ward management
- Pharmacy
- Pathology records
- Human resource
- Accounting
RxOffice HMS is an easy to maintain, ready to run, scalable, affordable and reliable cost saving tool suited for small and medium nursing homes.
| Seamless Integration In single view the user is able to see the administration, medical record and accounts details |
But, we are talking not just about technology, we are talking about making the system person independent “says Prasad Nagool, CEO IndiSoft HMS, “Indisoft is an organisation which not only develops software for their healthcare clients, but also customises them according to their needs. RxOffice professionals can staff the help desk, systems support and maintenance teams, whilst providing the advanced IT skills required for complex project initiatives. The key to success is the system of working in close co-ordination with clients and designing a flexible staffing plan. This plan complements the core staff of the client with the best experts from IndiSoft on a requirement—oriented basis. This structure has a proven track record of excellent results”.
Benefits of RxOffice HMS
1. Easier management of patient: The patient data along with the TPA/ insurance company details, medical, legal case details can be easily maintained.
2. Automised billing: The regular bed charges and default services can be automised as well as the services from different department can easily be integrated. The service rate are standardised and can’t be changed by setting privilege there by avoiding manipulations.
3. Good inventory system: The daily purchase and consumption can be entered in the system there by maintaining the stock. Auto test consumption can be set so that when a test is performed only the stock set is deducted. Even the breakage entry and the expired item return have to be entered there by controlling the pilferages.
4. Roles and privileges (security): The administrative person can assign user specific roles and set the privileges for the user using the system there by maintaining the security.
5. Referral accounting: There is no need of going through all records at the end of the month. The report is ready as per the percentage set.
6. Prominent reports: Reports like Day summary (gives complete overview of the day), Patient outstanding, referral report can be easily generated. The government statutory registers can be generated. MIS reports like department-wise revenue collection, ICD Code wise patients, concession trends can be generated.
7. Email and SMS integration: The emails and SMS can be sent promptly or can be scheduled for specific date and time.
8. Tally integration: An interface is provided to transfer all the daily income and expense to Tally at a single click.
Future plans
- RxOffice web based system: RxOffice Web based system will be a fully online solution for the hospitals. All the information will be available anytime and anywhere. The software will be user friendly. It will help the hospital to take effective decisions for patient care, hospital administration, and accounting.
- RxOffice consultant module: This module is developed mainly for the doctors who are on the move, visit multiple hospitals, examine the patients and perform surgeries. At the end of the month, this module will give them complete list of visiting charges, surgeries performed or any other services rendered to the hospital.