Best BPM Practices for Healthcare Industry
Process inefficiencies in most industries and organizations affect revenues, share prices, and other physical aspects. Inefficiencies in the healthcare industry, on the other hand, affect the lives of people. That is why streamlining processes and increasing efficiency in the healthcare sector is of paramount importance for the general good of humankind. Regardless of who we are and what we do, we all need a sound healthcare system in place. Unfortunately, however, the healthcare industry happens to be least equipped with efficient solutions for business process management. Here are a few important ways in which hospitals and other healthcare units can benefit from business process management solutions.
Being More Efficient and Patient Friendly
When patients suffering from a sickness, visit a hospital, the last thing they want to do is go through stacks of paperwork requiring the filling out of forms, showing insurance, proving identity, displaying past records, etc. If the patient has visited the same hospital before and his or her records are already there, there should be an efficient system in place that can automatically procure the necessary information from the documents on record, making things much more convenient for the patient as well as the staff and facilitating a much faster check in. Unfortunately, there are still very few hospitals that are so enabled, and an annoyingly large number of hospitals still make the patients wait for long hours and go through cumbersome paperwork before being able to even see their doctor. An effective BPM strategy could be a windfall for such hospitals, and more so for their patients.
Going Green
The healthcare industry has been one of the largest document-oriented industries ever. Every visit ends up in a stack of reports, charts, bills, receipts, records, scans, and so much more. Not only is this paperwork extremely mind-boggling and difficult to keep track of, but it is also a huge drain on our natural resources (cut down trees). Automating the healthcare processes like increasing the prevalence of online check-ins, automated data and records, e-mailed reports and scans, as well as an electronic prescriptions can save tons of paper each day, making our planet a lot greener, literally.
Adopting innovative business process management solutions can make the healthcare industry a lot more patient-oriented, efficient, and environment-friendly.