Vanzolini Foundation stipulates that the health sector, both in the public and private areas, wastes between 25% and 30% of the value invested. Faced with this scenario, promoting efficient practice management system is a fundamental step to ensure the full functioning and even the survival of the hospital as a business.
The hospital administration must include transparent operational processes that facilitate and optimize care. Some practices help in the reach of a sustainable organization, reducing problems and improving the operation of the institution. Technology in health is also essential in the search for management improvements in hospitals. The management systems and other tools organized by the institution facilitate the financial balance and show where there are unnecessary expenses, as well as other problems that can be easily solved. In addition, they allow to know the costs and to know which specialties and agreements bring a better profitability for the institution.
10 steps to efficient practice management system:
- Know the profile of the patients: The first step is to understand in what context the institution is, if it has a complete and digitalized history of the clinical situation of the patients and what are the most common pathologies, in addition to knowing if it already adopts the Electronic Patient Medical History (PEP) system ) to centralize this information. These big data serve as a basis for working with Business Intelligence (BI), analytics and other analysis tools, which provide scenarios such as imminent epidemic outbreaks, seasonal increases in the flow of hospitalizations, search for certain specialties, among others. With knowledge about the costs of treatment, the institution also manages to more efficiently prepare its package marketing policy with insurance companies, which will make it more competitive.
- Reception and quality care: the patient’s admission to the hospital is decisive for all care. Any failure to receive the reception creates a negative image of the institution, in order to avoid this; management must implement clear processes and train employees. The use of a practice management system, for example, reduces the time of care and creates a logical, fair, organized and human flow.
- Continuous improvement: an efficient management, which goes beyond adopting specific practices, must be continuously improved and updated, especially through the hospital process management methodology. It is necessary to align the standards to the needs, maintaining an innovative and quality management, in order to create the perception of desired value in internal and external audiences. One way to achieve this result is by obtaining hospital certificates and accreditations, instruments that give credibility, guarantee of effectiveness in management methods, safe reference for continuous improvement and an objective diagnosis on the performance of the processes.
- Structure in day: Having a good structure is a crucial point to guarantee patient satisfaction and the delivery of a quality service. The commitment of health professionals is also essential to achieve this goal, and their performance depends on the structure offered. Having integrated systems, for example, is an important support for medical decisions.
- Training: valuing the human capital of the institution is also a function of the manager. Encouraging employees to update is a decisive factor in maintaining the quality of high attendance. Continuous training programs fulfill that mission well.
- Strategic planning: the hospital administration must keep it up to date; it must also guide employees on the paths they need to follow to achieve the goals set. To create strategic planning, health institutions must limit their mission, vision and values, identifying what their differential will be what their expectation for the future is and what principles will guide their decisions.
- Information exchange process: for a more fluid practice management system, the integration of technologies is essential. The ease of sharing information between hospital departments optimizes communication and facilitates both operational and healthcare processes, presenting productivity gains.
- Strengthen links with suppliers: establishing good communication is essential to ensure that the necessary items for the provision of services are available. With an optimized supply network and technology implemented, the hospital has full control over supplies, lowers costs and avoids waste.
- Efficient financial management: an efficient hospital administration has all financial processes in strict control, which means closing accounts with transparency and avoiding rejections, in addition to obtaining a reduction in the financial cycle of the account. In practice, the management systems allow for a more rigid control and reduce the slopes after the patient is discharged, which makes the delivery time of the minor account, increases the volume of deliveries in the same period of time and optimizes the cash flow, anticipating income.
- Attention to performance indicators: their role is to connect the data in order to enable analysis and comparisons that help guide management, so that it is more reliable and aware of where it is right and where it is necessary to improve. The data, observed together, becomes valuable information for the improvement of the processes and, consequently, of the hospital’s financial assistance and results.
Following these steps, the manager guarantees a complete and horizontal vision of the hospital, which allows greater control of the processes and facilitates eventual corrections of the path to quality health and also a healthy business.