While providing a positive patient experience is paramount for every hospital, this cannot be done without effectively managing costs. Where possible, healthcare leaders are under constant pressure to find new ways to streamline operations and reduce operational costs.
One way that emergency department administrators can achieve this is by using an emergency department information system (EDIS). These solutions allow you to better manage the information and data that passes through your department so that you can make more informed decisions to boost performance and reduce costs. An EDIS is intuitive and simple to use, so your staff can quickly learn the system and spend more time with patients.
Let’s look at some of these benefits offered by an EDIS in more detail:
Create a Central Repository for Patient Information
When working in an environment that is as constantly busy and filled with patients as an emergency department, it is important to have all of your patient’s information stored in a single, easily accessible digital source.
Using an EDIS in your emergency department can help to streamline patient care by providing a central repository for all patient information. This makes accessing every patient’s records much easier for your busy staff. Having an easy to access central source to access patient records saves your staff the time and unnecessary frustration of having to search for patient data across numerous locations.
Unify Communications
By having an EDIS store all of your department’s necessary information in one place, emergency department staff can quickly and easily access the information they need without having to search through multiple paper files or computer systems.
In turn, this can improve cross-department communication and collaboration across the entire hospital. When multiple departments are able to easily and accurately communicate and share information, it makes for an overall better patient experience.
Reduce the Number of Duplicate Tests and Procedures
In any emergency department, it is critical to operating as efficiently as possible. This means minimizing the amount of repetitive and unnecessary work wherever possible.
An EDIS can help accomplish this by reducing the number of duplicate tests and procedures that are ordered, as well as the number of potential errors that can occur when manually entering data into multiple systems. These repetitive tasks can diminish the patient experience and also end up placing high, unnecessary costs on your organization. By reducing the amount of these unnecessary procedures and errors, your emergency department will be able to achieve greater efficiency and outcomes across the board while cutting costs.
Better Data Collection and Analytics
In the modern healthcare industry, it is paramount to collect and efficiently utilize as much useful data as possible. Your emergency department can use analytical data created by your EDIS to benchmark performance expectations, track employee progress, and make more objective and informed business decisions to improve your operations. This helps your department improve utilization of resources, save on unnecessary costs and ensure that each staff member is operating at the highest level possible.
Improve Documentation Consistency
When dealing with the enormous number of patients seen in an emergency department, it can be difficult for staff to always complete the necessary documentation to the highest possible standard. Using an EDIS in your emergency department can help improve the consistency and quality of documentation by providing built-in notifications to staff about clinical documentation requirements.
This helps the caregivers in your department remember exactly which forms need to be filled out, when they need to be filled out and what information needs to be reported in them. Having accurate and consistent clinical documentation will ensure that your emergency department runs as smoothly as possible and no stone is left unturned (or undocumented).
With the often chaotic nature of an emergency department, any tool that can help keep your staff organized, reduce unnecessary costs and improve the patient experience is a necessity. Using an EDIS in your department is a great way to do just that. The increased efficiency, accuracy and consistency of documenting with the help of an EDIS will lead to better clinical outcomes, reduced costs and a more positive patient experience throughout your department.
Get a Better EDIS for Your Emergency Department
Pulse Check offers the most intuitive, user-friendly and effective emergency department information systems on the market. Our software is developed by Canadians for Canadian hospitals.
To find out how Pulse Check’s emergency department software can benefit your practice, book a demo with us today.