Addressing Gaps in Care Management through IT in Healthcare
Care management is essentially a multi-disciplinary domain which involves multiple stakeholders, including providers, payers and pharmacy with a wide range of expertise in healthcare management. This integration helps organizations increase transparency, encourage accountability, reduce costs and streamline operations.
To help educate people on the relevance and potential of IT in healthcare, we are starting a blog series which will tackle topics including member portals, data integration, data analysis, mobility in healthcare and other important features of IT-enabled healthcare. This series will also help tackle health insurance coverage, health care plans, and the quality of health care.
IT in Healthcare
V2Soft is an IT company that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States. Healthcare is one of those sectors that can apply technology to keep people healthy and informed on best practices. IT and healthcare is a match that can affect millions of lives in a positive manner.
With the right IT tools in hand, medical professionals can help their patients in ways previously unimaginable. The doctor will be able to provide speedy diagnosis, all due to hordes of relevant historical data that has been accumulated by the IT servers and analyzed by IT tools, and is presented in a highly specialized and easily accessible format.
Information technology is rapidly redefining the healthcare industry. Escalating demands require a product that is flexible without compromising standards.
Specific areas where IT in healthcare can be implemented are:
1. Improving the member portal access
There are multiple avenues that are enhanced by comprehensive implementation of information technology in member portals. The three key factors that should be considered when developing a member portal are:
- Access: Is the information being provided to patients relevant to their condition and will they understand the data and what it implies?
- Value: Are the resources helping the patient know more about his/her condition and positively affecting prognosis?
- Experience: Is the user experience up to mark? Meaning can patients in all demographics access the portal with relative ease and take actions without the help of others?
2. Provider Portal
So, you now have a member portal up and running… Next, you should work toward enabling the provider portal to deliver highly specific information and solutions. A case in point here would be care management for chronic disease. Typically, chronic disease management is an ongoing process and most of the prognosis is aimed at continuous care and follow-ups to help patients’ lead normal lives.
With the right IT software, you are enabled to do that and much more. IT enabled healthcare will ensure that your patient gets information about:
- A detailed history of their treatment
- Alerts of upcoming appointments with physicians
- Medications
- Follow-ups
- In-network doctors
- A1c, cholesterol and blood pressure monitoring
3. Unified platform
Finally, IT allows you to unify all the separate platforms and features discussed above into a pan-device software that has far-reaching consequences. For instance, a patient can view his/her health profile through a mobile app, which has been updated using a CRM/ERP software by the admins, and which will also be forwarded to the tablet devices of relevant doctors and other hospital staff. Think of a system that provides real-time updates on everything starting from a recent health complication in a patient, to purchase of new TVs for the hospital rooms.
- Instant communication with all members.
- Compatibility with different devices such as smartphones, desktop, tablets etc.
- Enhanced cooperation within and between team.
- Reduce redundancy in communication.
- Minimal training for users.
This ends the first part of the series aimed at empowering you to leverage IT in the healthcare sphere. By now you should have an overview of how IT in healthcare could be used and how you can enhance your organization’s efficiency and reach through IT-enabled services. In the next part, we will deliberate on how important an intelligently built member portal can be for your organization’s success and expansion.
V2Soft is among the highly-regarded IT solutions provider across the globe. We pride ourselves in offering customized solutions tailored for specific customer needs. Our mission is to provide Healthcare Information Systems Domains with expert knowledge, consulting services and solutions. All with the objective to assist clinicians and other health care providers in improving their services through the efficient use of technology which ultimately helps improve the quality of care.