Hospital administration is by no means a simple job. As one of the most important socioeconomic practices, it necessitates discipline and efficient management. There are many responsibilities and daily activities to manage, ranging from managing patients’ health track records, doctors’ schedules, pharmacy stock, bed availability, regular equipment maintenance, billing records, dealing with insurance companies, and facility management, and a lot more.
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For this reason, you would need a smart hospital management system to effectively handle all these activities without any ambiguities, inconsistencies, or errors.
In this article, we will learn what a hospital management system is, why having a smart hospital management system is important, what its benefits are, and the top 5 hospital management systems.
Let’s start by defining what a hospital management system is.
What Exactly is A Hospital Management System (HMS)?
A hospital management system also referred to as an outpatient management system, is a computer-based, web-based, or cloud-based health management software that helps in the management of all facets of hospital activities and complex processes that are part of the hospital’s daily operations. It offers interfaces for different stakeholders in a hospital, or any medical facility, to collect, view, monitor, and report information on any aspect of the hospital’s functioning.
This centralized 360-degree software allows you to manage patients, physicians, inventory, appointments, billing records, workforce, patient reports, finances, and much more. In a nutshell, a smart hospital management system is software that allows for the smooth management and administration of a hospital’s daily operations.
Now, let’s look at why every healthcare facility needs a hospital management system.
What Makes A Smart Hospital Management System So Important?
A smart hospital management system is vital for multiple reasons, including providing better clinical care to each and every patient, ensuring the smooth operation of the entire facility, and facilitating better financial management of all departments and, ultimately, of the hospital.
It is also essential in order to eliminate manual errors from all types of operations, effectively manage hospital resources, improve patient satisfaction by providing quality care, and keep inventories up-to-date, among other things.
All of these factors demonstrate that, in order to ensure the smooth and efficient administration of your healthcare facility, you must adopt a web-based or cloud-based hospital management system.
The following segment addresses the key advantages of a hospital management system. Let’s take a look.
Top 8 Benefits Of A Smart Hospital Management System
A smart HMS offers a number of benefits, including enhanced diagnosis and care, smooth facility operation, data availability at the fingertips, cost savings, and real-time data access, among others. Let’s take a look at some of the most significant advantages of a hospital management system.
1. Improved Diagnosis and Treatment
The primary benefit of a smart hospital management system is that it improves patient diagnosis and treatment. The patient’s health report and medical history from the past to the present, as well as the illness he is suffering from and the care he received, can all be added to and accessed via the HMS. Using this knowledge, doctors can better assess patients’ health problems, ultimately empowering them to provide the best care possible.
2. Seamless Functioning of The Hospital Facility
Every hospital is a machine in itself. Each part of the hospital is interconnected, whether it is staff, physicians, inventory, or finance. Therefore, in order to provide a better performance overall, all the components must be in good working order and operate in tandem. This can be accomplished with the help of a hospital management system.
The smart hospital management system ensures that every component of the hospital facility is in good working order and that the best possible results are achieved.
3. Better Inventory Management
Any hospital, whether multispecialty or surgical, has a wide inventory of medications, medical instruments, biodegradable items like masks, gloves, and syringes, patient refreshment, bedding products, and much more. All of these items must be kept up to date at all times to ensure the hospital’s smooth running. Using HMS, you can get a daily update on available stocks and thus effectively manage your inventory.
4. Availability of Information At Fingertips
The hospital’s data enables you to track and monitor various events to improve your approach and set performance targets. With a smart hospital management system, you will have all of the details you need at your fingertips, including the patient’s medical history, inventory, finance, workforce, and more. You can use this knowledge to figure out what flaws there are in the system or in which department and how to fix them. The information also aids you in developing a long-term strategy for your healthcare facility.
5. Reduce Unnecessary Expenses
When all of the hospital’s operations are handled manually, there is a high risk of information leakage and irregularities. Because, as humans, we are prone to making mistakes. These errors will have serious consequences in the long run. However, with the aid of a smart hospital management system, you can easily control all of the hospital’s operations, even with fewer human resources. Moreover, this will also limit human interference in the system, resulting in lower operational costs and less leakage.
6. Increased Data Protection
Another significant advantage of hospital management systems is improved data protection. Since everything is done through a secure system, only authorized individuals have access to the specific data collection. Furthermore, in a cloud-based hospital management system, everything is interconnected, ensuring that there are no risks of data loss and that the patients’ medical history or condition information remains completely protected.
7. Real-time Data Access
Since a smart hospital management system is a centralized system, doctors, administrative personnel, and other employees can access data in real-time, enabling them to make the best decisions possible. For example, the real-time data about the inventory will assist management in replenishing and updating the inventory. Similarly, the real-time data about the patient’s treatment will assist doctors in making clinical decisions with no room for error or ambiguity.
8. Requires Less Manpower
To keep hospitals running smoothly or to handle a number of functions and activities manually, you’ll certainly need hundreds of trained personnel. However, more human resources mean more expenses in the long run. But, with the help of a smart hospital management system, you can significantly reduce the workforce strength. Since the hospital information software will handle every operation, you will not need the same number of employees as manual management.
These are the 8 most important advantages of a smart hospital management system, highlighting why you should implement one as soon as possible in your healthcare facility. Let us now look at the top 5 hospital management systems.
Top 5 Hospital Management Systems 2021
The top 5 hospital management systems are listed below, based on various aspects and factors such as functionalities, UI/UX, cost, integration, data protection, and platform support. Let’s take a look at each one individually.
1. KareXpert Advanced HIMS
KareXpert advanced HIMS is a fully integrated healthcare platform that puts together all healthcare modules as a pre-integrated stack at a fraction of the cost, allowing hospitals to achieve end-to-end automation of their patients’ visits and have the best treatment experience.
Furthermore, since KareXpert is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) commercial smart hospital management system, hospitals can simply pay a fixed monthly fee for a fully managed cloud and application service.
2. MediXcel EMR and HIS
MediXcel EMR and HIS is an easy-to-use EMR and patient management software for clinics of all sizes. It’s a browser-based application that you can install on your local network or in the cloud, depending on your requirements. The hospital can use its integrated CRM functionality to optimize patient care, control multi-clinic access, accounts, inventory, membership, and patient appointments, among other things.
MediXcel is an ideal smart hospital management system for private practitioners, clinics, hospitals, and diagnostic centers.
3. Halemind
HaleMind is a cloud-based EHR platform that provides a rich set of features to automate, evolve, and transform healthcare practice while also simplifying day-to-day hospital operations. For example, Halemind can integrate and manage data from a patient’s appointments, diagnoses, medications, bills, and charts.
Private practitioners, clinics, multispecialty hospitals, and diagnostic centers can find Halemid to be an excellent EHR/HMS program.
4. Caresoft Hospital Information System
Caresoft HIS is a smart hospital management system that can be used by healthcare organizations to automate their clinical, financial, and administrative processes through knowledge management, optimized resource management, and improved patient care delivery. Free open source hospital management software offers multi-center deployment, integration capabilities, advanced security, and a configurable and flexible structure.
Caresoft hospital information system is suitable for hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and medical schools.
5. GeniPulse HMS
GeniPulse is a fully integrated and user-friendly hospital management system for all sizes and types of healthcare facilities. It combines numerous hospital functions such as OPD, patient registration, laboratory, IPD, purchase, stores, and pharmacy. Its core features include an OPD module, an IPD module, billing, and EMR module, transaction management, room management, a utility module, and a patient module.
The GeniPulse smart hospital management system is ideal for small, medium, and large hospitals.
With that, we’ll wrap up this article with the hopes that you’ve gained a better understanding of what a smart hospital management system is, why we need one, what advantages it provides, and the top 5 hospital management systems.
Final Thought
A smart hospital management system is a must-have software for all forms of healthcare facilities. It streamlines daily operations while also providing a centralized, real-time, and secure data system.
Moreover, it also optimizes and digitizes all of the organization’s activities, which help enhance customer care, lower operational costs, and streamline the search for medical records, payments, patients, and physicians. For all these reasons, if you want your hospital to expand and outgrow your competitors, get a smart HMS asap!
Paras Kela is a web developer turned content writer who holds writing expertise in multiple niches. The strong cocktail of his English-medium schooling, passion for writing, and vast industry experience help him create information-rich, SEO-friendly, engaging content. In his spare time, he enjoys binge-watching drama series & documentaries, gardening and spending time with loved ones.
