The New World Of Patient Data Management

By Simon Wieczner, CEO, Snowbound Software

In today’s increasingly paperless world, companies across industries have been rapidly adopting electronic file systems, record keeping and communication programs. The healthcare industry is no exception. Advancements in patient record technology are revolutionizing the way the healthcare system is run and operated. The days of relying solely on paper charts and notes to record patients’ medical histories are obsolete, and in many offices and healthcare institutions, they are gone completely. These outdated systems are replaced by cutting-edge yet easy to use web-based solutions that handle all documents digitally, thereby improving speed of access to important patient records while reducing administrative burdens, improving efficiency and lowering costs.

Though there is a long way to go before all health practioners and healthcare institutions are fully digital, there is no going back. With today’s government mandates and insurance requirements, if you’re not recording patient data digitally, you’re behind the curve. You’re also incurring greater costs because those paper notes will shortly need to be scanned and digitized, potentially creating extra work as paper data is converted to computer data.

While these are certainly key benefits you’ll enjoy once you’ve adjusted to a digital record system, the reality is that electronic health care records (EHRs) pose numerous integration challenges, as patient documents are often created in disparate systems and departments. Insurance systems and government systems may be designed differently and may use incompatible document formats. Even though many healthcare institutions are moving over to commercially designed systems conforming to popular standards, there are many who still use home-grown systems that don’t easily integrate to industry-standard ones. There are also potentially millions of documents in formats such as scanned paper documents, faxes, photos, radiological images, and emails stored in different types of repositories. In order for healthcare providers to easily work with these various patient information documents, they need industrial strength document management and viewing technologies.

Document Management Across Industries
Due to the great number of bank mergers in the past decade, it became critical that records stored in different databases on different types of computers (Windows, Unix or other) be easily retrievable and readable in order to facilitate rapid integration and consolidation. A lot of development effort was put into creating flexible and comprehensive conversion and viewing products to handle all these different records.  Fortunately, the technology developed to facilitate these conversions is relatively easy to transfer to other industries, and now there are solutions that make accessing these various document types possible across any type of platform. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) ACT, which was signed into law by President Obama in 2009, requires universal EHR adoption by 2015, which means that document management will become an increasingly important tool in healthcare providers’ arsenal.

HITECH
The opportunity around HITECH is probably the most important healthcare investment growth opportunity of the decade, and even companies not in the healthcare space are looking for ways to get involved and take advantage of this developing area. As these guidelines are implemented, companies are looking to get a part of this lucrative business by re-orienting themselves to this area and promoting how their newly designed products can help providers achieve HITECH compliance. With the landscape rapidly changing, companies with a history in healthcare need to act quickly to adopt new technology that allows them to expand their markets, and healthcare providers need to take inventory and figure out the best way forward as they work to become compliant.

Keeping it Safe
In addition to helping organizations become compliant, there are myriad other benefits that effective document management tools provide in the healthcare space. First and foremost, these types of document management tools help ensure the safety of patients in hospitals and other health care facilities by providing access to the entire patient record portfolio. With patient records being shared across numerous departments and external providers, ensuring that all critical patient records and information are logically stored and easily accessible in one place is essential to help healthcare providers prevent dangerous treatment errors. This also helps hospitals avoid doubling up on expensive testing, which can easily run up bills for both the hospitals themselves and patients. In addition to physical safety, effective document management tools also help keep sensitive personal information safe by making sure that only authorized parties can access certain files. This type of security ensures that critical personal information stays safe, protecting patients’ identities and hospitals’ reputations.

Quick and Easy
Not only do effective document management tools add a level of security, they also improve usability and help promote greater efficiency within the healthcare industry. Advanced document management systems can seamlessly integrate numerous different file types into one easy-to-read document. As a result, users can access records generated in any department using any file type with one single system, which greatly speeds access and response time and means that time isn’t lost in file conversions. This feature also helps users overcome problems with data retrieval, which can occur with siloed information systems. All these features help reduce time lost and improve overall efficiency in document sharing and access within and across departments.

On the Go
Mobility is everywhere these days. Users across all industries want information delivered right into the palms of their hands, and the healthcare field is no exception. With the rapid adoption of mobile technologies utilizing web access to provide patient records, effective document management solutions must be able to support all the latest devices – tablets, smartphones and laptops, in addition to the more traditional desktops.

The younger generation of doctors and other healthcare professionals are rapidly becoming almost exclusively reliant on tablets (and to a lesser extent smartphones) for all their medical record review and note taking. For the same reasons, the rest of the world is moving from laptops and desktops to tablets. Their compact size, ease of use and flexibility are providing immense utility to healthcare providers.

Clearly, document retrieval and viewing technologies are key for achieving HITECH compliance, but they also provide myriad benefits for internal processes. The ability to quickly access a patient’s entire medical history has the potential to revolutionize healthcare delivery. In the same way, document management will revolutionize the way in which healthcare records are processed and accessed. Healthcare providers will need to expand their use of the most effective methods of recording patient data, or they will not be able to handle the coming revolution of healthcare record processing. That said, patient care facilities who look to adopt cutting-edge technology now, like high-performance document management solutions, will reap the benefits sooner and achieve HITECH compliance via a quicker, smoother, more cost-effective process.