Healthcare IT Services Gaining Momentum in Healthcare Industry

In today’s electronic world we see that every aspect of our life is directly or indirectly linked with automation and electronic environment. Similar aspect is seen even with healthcare. Yes, it is a fact that healthcare is associated with computerized system0s. Hence, it is known as health information technology and abbreviated as HIT. With this advancement, healthcare management is a complete package accuracy, quality as well as efficiency. The information is well managed between insurers, consumers, government and providers. In this electronic environment the information can be maintained properly, thereby retaining its privacy. 

Continuous and regular use of healthcare IT services can improve the overall performance of the healthcare industry. Automation and electronic environment is a complete package of quality and efficiency. Here privacy and data security is of prime importance. This can improve productivity and effectiveness in healthcare industry as medical errors can be reduced to a greater extent resulting in minimizing the cost associated with it. This can also minimize the risk of loopholes in healthcare procedures, thereby making a way to affordable health care. With HIT, administration process is very smooth as paper work is reduced. Thus, maintaining documents is easy. This also has a positive impact on cost control and better processing of the claims. 

Earlier the processes with healthcare involved a lot of manual workload and to and fro visit to the medical facilities. With the adoption of health information technology it is quite easy to exchange the information and ensure better processing of healthcare documents across different medical institutions. Although the prime hurdle remains the initial cost of implementing the transformation of medical procedures so that all the data is made available in an accessible format, the initiative has taken steps forward with the various advancements in medical technology. These initial costs can then be offset with the long term benefits and easy healthcare facilities for the general public. 

With better medical facilities available on account of breakthroughs in medical science and  diagnostics, it is inevitable that human life span has increased but so have the costs of medical expenses. Healthcare IT Services have tried to bridge this gap by leveraging the use of advances in computer technology for medical diagnostics and high end surgical equipments. All the diagnostic information about the medical condition of the patient is electronically stored and accessed simultaneously by different medical experts to cure the ailment and also provide post surgery or treatment records for future reference. 

All this information stored electronically is referred to as the Electronic Health Record or EHR. Though it is not widely accepted in the absence of a standard procedure to produce such records, it is gaining momentum as more and more healthcare institutions realize the benefits they are offering to all.

THE ROLE OF HEALTHCARE IT COMPANIES

                                             THE ROLE OF HEALTHCARE IT COMPANIES

In the last 20 years, Information technology has brought about a revolution in almost all spheres of our lives with the most positive transformation being in the field of healthcare. Healthcare information technology has entirely changed the way we have been addressing healthcare in the past. Today, it plays a major role in minimizing damage caused due to human error. Healthcare IT companies are committed to providing the best healthcare IT solutions with a combination of technology skills, innovative solutions and domain expertise.

WHAT is HEALTH IT?

Health information technology is any device, procedure, pharmaceutical/organizational system or innovation manufactured to improve the quality of the healthcare being provided for a particular person.

BENEFITS OF HEALTH IT

The development of electronic prescribing and electronic medical records (EMR) has been most significant in the field of healthcare. Electronic Prescribing enables sending accurate and understandable prescriptions electronically from the practitioner to the pharmacy. EMR is a computerized history of patient health information. EMR's are kept on health information systems that allow storage, retrieval and manipulation of records by health care providers. It also saves considerable time and effort involved in keeping and managing records bringing down the costs. Also with the help of these records and information, the complete picture of a patient's medical history is instantly available to practitioners thereby leading to proper diagnose and treatment of the patient. Healthcare IT solutions are therefore beyond doubt the best tool mankind has ever got.

ROLE OF HEALTHASYST IN HEALTHCARE IT

HealthAsyst offers a spectrum of software services that helps clients to effectively address their operational challenges and grow their businesses. Some of their services include software development, mobile application development, ICD 9-10 implementation & healthcare integration. HealthAsyst meets its clients and prospective clients to fully understand their business operations, their software needs and the challenges they face in the market. Using this feedback, they strive to develop the software that is equipped to meet real-world needs.

THEIR PRODUCTS

1. CheckinAsyst is a self-service patient check-in solution providing fast, convenient check-in for patients, allowing them to identify themselves, view and confirm demographic and insurance information, electronically sign consent forms and even make payments.

2. FormsAsyst captures clinical and administrative data automatically. Patients enter information with minimal effort, sign electronic forms and the data automatically gets updated in the back-end system.

3. RadAsyst solution is designed to enhance patient experience while simplifying the life of his radiology technologist.

4. Mobile Patient Engagement Solutions empower the patients with individualized information on health, allow pre-check in from mobile or tablets. They help in creating a health eco-system where the patients can view and update their health records, communicate with providers and receive lab results.

Healthcare IT companies thus focus on ways to enhance quality of patient care and improve patient safety allowing its clients to grow their business while controlling costs.

The Need for Healthcare Software Quality Assurance

An Overview of the Challenges in Healthcare IT Software

The healthcare sector has its own challenges when it comes to software as does every other industry. Given the critical nature of the industry, the consequences of lapses are far too great here and this is the reason behind strict regulatory requirements and heavy penalties. The software employed for healthcare needs to be precise, helpful and manage to uphold the security and integrity of data apart from ensuring regulatory compliance. The major challenges that the healthcare IT software solutions need to address are:

·         Conform to healthcare reforms - For example, Meaningful Use

·         HIPPA Compliance and other major regulatory compliance (FDA norms, etc)

·         Enable mobility to facilitate remote access Patient Engagement – ease of use, gaining trust and collecting feedback by means of patient surveys and working on improving the application

·         Analysing clinical data and facilitating clinical data warehousing

·         Scaling up to the latest technological innovations

Thus, healthcare IT software industry has a lot of challenges in its wake. The most important factor to be considered however is this: how safe is the software to use and will it truly ease the processes and improve productivity of the staff. Similarly, data integrity and trust aspects are other worry factors when it comes to healthcare IT software. This is why Quality Assurance and testing play a key role in such solutions.

Healthcare Software QA – Evolution and the role it plays in the industry

The critical nature of the software mandates thorough testing and quality assurance and only these two put together can ensure smooth functioning of the software and flawless integration. It takes time for healthcare professionals to trust software and for them to do so, healthcare software QA is imperative. Testing and QA ensure that the software is indeed fit to be used for the functionality it was designed for and also validates business workflows and measures performance. The key factor here is to employ people with knowledge of the domain to work on testing it so that functional testing can happen in the true sense and testers understand the application end to end before testing it.

Top Trends Impacting Healthcare Software QA

Cloud and SaaS applications are ruling the roost everywhere these days and healthcare IT software is no exception. Thus, in testing too, cloud, SaaS and Big Data specific skills are required. Another recent trend that has caught on is the use of mobile devices and kiosks and this requires that the software be tested for these platforms as well.  Agile methodologies are being employed in development and testing along with introduction of new testing tools that improve the efficiency of testing and the documentation of testing practises. Compliance and end to end testing are other key areas that have witnessed a lot of advancements in recent years.

Testing and QA has always played a crucial role in healthcare software and will continue to do so for years to come as is evident from the amount of resources companies are spending on healthcare software QA and testing.

Open New Avenues for Healthcare Service Development with IT Outsourcing

After the US government made it mandatory for healthcare organizations to use information technology in their day-to-day organization process, ISVs, medical clearing houses, medical equipment manufacturers, payers and, payment consolidation firms in the healthcare industry are looking for healthcare IT outsourcing options. Most healthcare organizations worry about two basic points when it comes to outsourcing – what to outsource and why to outsource?

There are a number of benefits in outsourcing Healthcare IT software services. Information technology can be used to streamline your operational processes and reduce time and efforts.

Focus on your Core Business

The most important advantage of IT outsourcing is that you can forget about the nitty-gritty details of the peripheral services and concentrate on your core business. You can save on time, effort and man power by using advanced software programs to run all your customer associated services. You can be assured of improved customer relationship and still keep a check on the service quality.

Reduce Costs

Healthcare IT outsourcing can help reduce operational costs to a great extent. You don’t have to spend time and effort in building an IT product development or maintenance team by simply outsourcing all your non-core tasks.

Improve Productivity

When you outsource all your non-core tasks and related services, your staff can concentrate on the core business. Automating systems can reduce manual intervention and reduce errors and time, which in turn, improves the productivity levels.

Paperless Management

One of the biggest advantages of using Healthcare IT software is paperless management. The entire operational process is automated, which streamlines processes and connects departments for easy data transfer and integration.

Customer Satisfaction

Use of information technology helps seamless data transfer between parties. So, the customer is not only able to get a quick view of what’s happening, but also a clear picture of the entire procedure.

Easy Ramp up and Ramp Down

Healthcare IT software reduces manual effort to a great extent, which means you can effortlessly ramp up and down your productivity based on business requirements.

Reduced Time to Market

Integration of information technology in your day-to-day applications can greatly enhance performance and speed. Also, since manual intervention is reduced, you can save a lot of man hours and reduce the time to market your product.