Enabling timely and appropriate care is critical in a modern hospital. With hospital budget pressure and the focus on value-based care, healthcare providers are refocusing on technologies that increase the quality and efficiency of care services and can improve patient experiences.

Understanding the patient experience is a key step in moving toward patient-centred care. Evaluating the patient experience, in conjunction with the other components of care such as effectiveness and safety, is essential for providers to gain a complete picture of health care quality and their delivery mechanisms.

Unfortunately, many providers still operate with silos of data stored in different information systems, which can have a negative impact on the patient experience. Doctors, nurses, pharmacy, and administrative staff often have trouble accessing and sharing patient data, having to open multiple systems to find the information they need, even at the point of care.

With disjointed information systems that are not connected, accurate patient follow-up is not always possible. If a patient falls ill from a hospital-acquired infection or does not receive effective care that follows proven protocol, then the patient’s experience will suffer.

Optimising patient flow

Digital transformation and end-to-end hospital information systems are starting to change that scenario. Often, multiple care teams are assigned to the care of a single patient. To deliver meaningful treatment plans, each clinician needs access to a holistic, up-to-date overview of the patient in real-time. Easy accessibility to patient records greatly enhances the overall performance of the hospital by enabling timely medical decisions and confirmation of medications and other procedures during or after medical treatments.

An integrated platform, where clinical information from various data sources is consolidated and shared immediately, results in more accurate medical care–and ultimately—a better patient experience, higher satisfaction, and the higher chance of a positive outcome. It also allows for less duplication of services and improved care coordination across teams.

A fully integrated, end-to-end hospital information system allows care providers to optimise the patient journey, from arrival through to assessment, admission, care and discharge. Combining all the steps into a complete solution that ranges from efficient patient administration to integrated back office management to the scheduling of surgical resources and pharmacy automation helps ensure that resources are allocated effectively, improving operational efficiencies. An integrated platform can drive down costs while maintaining quality of care, as it gives doctors and nurses more time to provide accurate and personalised care to their patients.

Efficient workflows

In a fully integrated hospital information system, facilities can deliver optimum workflows for their unique patient management context. The patient experience is significantly improved, as information from the patient is collected only once, which reduces the duplication of effort. It also facilitates the reduction of waiting times and/or data collection if the patient requires an additional test or meets with a different clinician, allowing for a more streamlined patient experience.

As a patient moves through the facility, all records are electronically captured and coded, enabling automatic recognition of a patient, visit, caregiver and form type when scanned back into the system. From registration to scheduling, a single system can include multi-language capabilities and multi-currency revenue cycle management, catering for international hospitals that may need to integrate more than one language or currency.

Another significant benefit of having easily accessible patient data is the recognition of patterns that can be analysed using the data. This patient data, including health history, disease, symptoms, and allergies, can generate useful patterns that give valuable insight into a patient’s behaviour, such as a patient’s response to certain medical conditions, frequency of visits, and awareness of their medical conditions. 

Connecting patient, clinical, departmental, and back office

A fully integrated hospital information system connects patient-facing services with clinical teams, departmental functions, and back-office operations. Bringing the entire ecosystem onto a single, unified platform. This level of integration ensures that everyone, from front-desk staff to surgeons and finance teams, is working with the same up-to-date information. It enables seamless coordination across departments, reduces administrative burden, eliminates redundant processes, and ensures that care decisions are backed by timely, accurate data.

The result is a hospital environment that runs more efficiently, supports better clinical outcomes, and delivers a smoother, more personalised patient experience.