What is a patient administration system (PAS)?

The COVID-19 pandemic placed an important spotlight on the healthcare industry, particularly the need for hospitals to have robust systems in place to efficiently manage patient flow.

Already stretched hospitals had to quickly prepare for an increase in patients, putting pressure not only on clinical teams but also on management and administration teams to process data, report on it, and allocate resources effectively.

Whilst many contributing factors enable a hospital to operate at optimal efficiency, the patient administration system is at the heart of many health systems.

What is a patient administration system?

The patient administration system (PAS) was first developed to manage increasing volumes of paperwork associated with a patient’s hospital visit, enabling organisations to capture and use data in a more structured manner.

Now fundamental to hospital management, a PAS performs several essential functions to ensure smooth operation including appointment booking, waitlist management, patient admission, discharge and transfers.

Key features of a PAS include automating key processes and allowing users to enter information in a single system and then view that information across many departments.

By streamlining hospital processes and joining up information, the real benefits of a PAS are gained from the ability to report and schedule resources across an entire hospital.

The value of a modern PAS

With a modern PAS, data can be entered into a single system and reporting completed at the click of a button.

This functionality is hugely beneficial when responding quickly to events such as the outbreak of infectious disease, a pandemic, a natural disaster or other major emergencies. It not only improves organisational efficiencies but enables essential reporting back to governing bodies.

The ability to support SNOMED CT is particularly important in these types of instances for early recognition of health issues and monitoring of population health by utilising common terminology that can be easily shared across care settings.

Another key feature of a PAS is the ability to schedule resources across the organisation. From appointment booking through to equipment and resources, scheduling functionality can drastically optimise a hospital’s operations.

Over time this not only leads to cost savings and improves the patient’s journey through the system, but it enables organisations to respond better to suddenly increased pressures by reallocating resources where they are needed most. It also makes important data, such as event history, immediately available and accessible.

For all of these benefits to be realised, clinical and administrative information must flow in a meaningful way. Whilst integration between the various systems is important to avoid even the basic duplication of data, true interoperability – where data is transparently moved between systems and instantly available – will bring the most value to a healthcare organisation and start to add real value in terms of resource optimisation and support provision of care.