The healthcare sector in India has of late increasingly faced essential resource constraints. The scarce well being sources and infrastructure of the Indian healthcare establishment was out in the open as the pandemic dealt its second blow, specially when it came to bed availability in a hospital. Now with the worry of a third wave looming more than us, we need to have to take stock of how the sector is preparing itself for any future eventuality. One way of carrying out it suitable is by expediting bed turnover price, which entails a quantity of paper-based processes.
This clearly suggests that the crucial to speeding up the bed turnover price is in digitizing the paper-based processes. Be it about updating the bed vacancy status or searching for a number of approvals from distinctive specialties like Cardiology, Urology, Endocrinology, Neurology and so on.
According to Srini Dokka, Vice President (Sales) at MSB Docs, a startup recognized beneath the central government’s Start Up India programme that has helped one of the major hospitals in the national capital increase its bed turnover price, “Over the past year, hospitals have seen too much burden in terms of patient influx due to the pandemic. There have been instances when even while beds were vacant, paper-based processes and absence of proper authorization kept patients awaiting beds in limbo for long hours. With paperless solutions, the hospitals can and have been able to update the vacant bed status on a real time basis.”
He additional mentioned that when hospitals are paperless, a floor in-charge can update bed vacancy status quickly working with authorized eSignature for communication to the front desk. There is no need to have of operating from one wing to a different to update the status manually, hence saving each time and lives.
“The process of discharge summaries can also be expedited using Digital and Electronic Signature solutions. There is no need for nursing staff to manually move files for approvals across different departments. All doctors and medical professionals concerned can access discharge summaries digitally and approve the same with Digital Signatures while the summary can later be acknowledged post receipt by the patients using Electronic Signatures,” mentioned Srini Dokka.
But is this adequate? Fact remains that to increase bed turnover price efficiently, hospitals also need to have to digitize quite a few allied paper-based tasks, such as insurance coverage, billing and so on. Nishant Gupta, Founder and CEO of Gurugram-based boutique hospital Medharbour, believes hospitals going paperless can be a lifesaver. “Earlier usually the average stay of a patient cycle took nearly three days while the same is possible within two days by alleviating paper-based processes. Doctors themselves now want patients to get discharged sooner in their bid to ensure minimal hospital-borne infections.”
He additional mentioned that “if the paperwork is digitalized, there would be no or shorter queues for insurance and billing purposes. This would eventually help patients save at least 6-8 hours, spent merely in the discharge process. Chances of errors are also reduced majorly as there’s no chaos from the floor nursing station to the final billing counter. Also, there is no scope for medical negligence as all information like medicines prescribed by doctors are stored digitally and easily accessible by nursing staff.”