4 Automation Ideas for Your Hospital
March 30, 2023
Between staff, equipment, patients, visitors, and more, hospitals are busy places. Strategic automation and the right technology can help provide security while also improving patient care and satisfaction, and staff satisfaction and efficiency. Here are a few automation ideas for your hospital:
1. Streamline Check-In and Checkout Processes
The admissions and check-in process as well as the checkout process can take up a lot of time and create several inefficiencies. Anything you can automate during this process can help improve efficiency and experience all around.
Visitor Management Solutions
Implementing self-screening and visitor management solutions at check-in can also help streamline the admissions process. These kiosks allow for automated temperature monitoring, screening questions, and more; all of which can provide necessary information to staff while also reducing redundancies and improving efficiency in check-in processes.
EHR Systems
The advent of EHR (Electronic Health Record) systems that consolidate information, forms, etc. in one place has already improved efficiencies during initial check-in and throughout hospital visits and stays. In addition to online form submission on the patient side, nurses and doctors can also access this information and add to it and update it during visits for more efficient and improved care.
2. Implement Solutions for More Efficient Patient Care
Streamlining the admissions and checkout processes is only the first step. From there, you can also implement a variety of solutions to help provide more efficient patient care. Making patient information easily accessible to whoever needs to care for them can make a big difference in reducing errors and improving patient care overall.
Consolidate Patient Information
Applications that can take real-time information about patients and transform it into easily accessible visual dashboards can improve efficiencies in patient care. From updating medical history and medication management to back-end operation preparation and follow-up, aftercare procedures and progress, unit or hospital transfers, and more, all the necessary information is available, accessible, and updatable in one place.
Integrate Systems
This efficiency and easy accessibility are some of the benefits of integrated security systems that can also apply to automation ideas for your hospital. Integrating patient information and care with nurse call systems, resident locating products, patient protection products, and more can all improve efficiencies in your hospital while also improving patient care.
3. Monitor Equipment and Supplies
Another one of the efficient automation ideas for your hospital is to use RTLS (real-time location systems) to monitor equipment and supplies. This is also one of the benefits of effective asset management in healthcare. Not only does RTLS allow you to quickly locate equipment throughout the hospital as well as keep track of how many and which hospital beds are available, but it can also be used for environmental monitoring and to monitor inventory of supplies, medications, etc.
These systems can also provide insights into where staff are located throughout a unit. RTLS has also been integrated into patient protection products to allow for improved patient locating and safety as well. The wearables in wander management solutions and wearables with matching technology in infant protection systems are prime examples of this.
4. Use Analytics and Review Reports
If you are using integrated systems, there should be some sort of analytics and reporting features available to you already. Reliable and robust reporting is one of the things to look for in incident management software and should be an essential feature in any sort of asset tracking, risk management, etc. application you implement for your hospital.
Any data you can gather about your hospital processes can be helpful in improving existing workflows and identifying gaps or inefficiencies that need some work. Whatever automation ideas or healthcare workflows you implement in your hospital should be beneficial to patients and staff; being able to track information and generate useful reports can help you make sure they are.
Implement Efficient Automation in Your Healthcare Facility
In addition to various applications of environmental monitoring in healthcare, these are just a few automation ideas for your hospital. Every healthcare facility is different so the right mix of security products and technology integrations will vary.
Choosing the right security systems integrator is a good start to getting the comprehensive security and efficiency your healthcare facility needs. Contact NEPPS at 800-736-1456 to schedule a free site assessment.