Document Digitization Changing Hospitals' Efficiency In Patient Management
Healthcare is currently among the largest sectors in the country, with reports suggesting that the Indian healthcare market would most likely reach $372 billion by the end of next year. While the sector might be huge in terms of both revenue as well as employment, a number of steps are yet to be taken especially with regard to upgrading and adopting new technologies. And one such technology that the Indian healthcare establishment requires to adopt at the earliest is smart document and signature solutions, which would help them go paperless and thereby improve its overall services. When hospitals or other healthcare centres leverage paperless solutions, it would prove to be beneficial for everyone involved, be it the doctors, patients, nurses or other staff members.
Usually, when patients or their kin visit a hospital, they are met with long queues at all counters and departments. People running from pillar to post for various purposes like room allotment, billing, appointments, tests or consultations is also a common sight. The situation is only turning more worrisome with an increased influx of patients, the worst of which we witnessed during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. It would not be an exaggeration to state at this point that smart document and signature solutions hold the key to all aforementioned troubles.
To understand this better, let’s first talk about how going paperless can transform the process of admission to a hospital. Admission is one of the most time talking processes owing to the multiple formalities involved. For instance, before getting admitted or being allotted a bed, patients need to furnish a bunch of details like medical history, doctor’s recommendation, previous reports, identity proof etc. But this is not the case if the hospital goes paperless, thanks to advanced tools such as Web Forms. These forms can be customized as per the policies or requirements of the hospital, following which the patients can fill all required information using their mobile phones from the comfort of their homes instead of waiting in the hospital lobby for extended hours.
With regard to identity verification, a smart way out is using the Aadhaar Signature, which is a kind of digital signature developed especially for India. This signature tool entails that the identity of the person signing a document is pre-verified; all the patients need for this purpose is their Aadhaar number and OTP received on registered mobile number. If this is not all, other necessary documents like prescriptions etc can also be uploaded digitally without the conventional scan-print-scan system.
Now when a patient finally gets a bed in a hospital, rounds of doctors and constant administration of oral or IV medicines by nursing staff becomes a part of the daily regimen. The most common practice across hospitals is that a senior doctor prescribes medicines on the basis of reports and clinical assessments while the nursing staff members are responsible for executing the instructions. When hospitals go paperless, there is minimal scope of any errors in this regard. With customized template workflows, all instructions and requirements are documented digitally so that there’s a ready reckoner in case of any confusion.
Another process that hospitals can speed up for better patient management is the preparation of discharge summary, which requires signatures and approvals from doctors across different disciplines. By using smart signature forms like electronic and digital signatures, the whole process can be streamlined with utmost ease. The summary can be shared with different departments simultaneously who can approve the same using digital signatures while the same can finally be acknowledged at the patient’s end using an electronic signature.
In addition to these, the efficiency of other processes like billing, test scheduling, appointment scheduling and insurance management can also be enhanced with regard to patient management by saying no to paper-based processes.
