4 Canadian Technology Solutions That Can Help Reduce Healthcare Operational Costs

The Canadian healthcare industry is always said to be updated with the changing trends and adaption of the enhanced healthcare services. While the hospitals and the healthcare service providers are said to earn a huge profit with the increased importance of healthcare among the Canadians, there is a good amount that these healthcare providers have to spend to keep the system operational.

Whether it’s about hospital maintenance, staff salary, buying new equipment, managing patients, or filling up the inhouse pharmacy stock, there is a lot of money that needs to be spent in these aspects to keep up the operation of a hospital or a clinic.

As technology has always played a vital role in the healthcare industry, there are some healthcare IT solutions that can probably help these healthcare service providers to minimize the operational costs and improve the efficiency of the healthcare system.

Below is a list of some of such healthcare technology solutions for the hospital owners to have a look at.

Cost-saving technology solutions for the healthcare system

●    Advanced admin software to automate the task

Hospital admins are the busiest area filled with the crowd and the hundreds of things to be managed and synchronized. A lot of time, resources, and money are spent to maintain the admin system as it is the center for information, new case registration, or even discharge.

Using the AI-based administrative apps and software can help this admin staff to streamline their work process by automating the repetitive administrative task. Like entering the daily records and updates in the electronic healthcare records can be synced with the patient’s reports and directly saved as the EHR for the software to analyze and store the data in a pre-described manner.

Based on the reports and EHR analysis this admin software can also help to send reminders to the patients and an alert for the doctor to avoid any excessive testing of the patient.

InnoCare is one such Canadian based clinic management software that helps in the smoother management of the clinics in Canada.

●    Appointment scheduling apps for patients

The next in the list that can reduce a great workload for the hospital workers is the appointment scheduling software. As more of the hospitals are opting for making their online presence through a website, having such a scheduling app for your hospital can be a great way to attract your customers while improving your business operation.

These appointment scheduling apps are designed to replace the hospital process of making appointments, maintaining track records, and the manual work of filing each patient’s data.

Appointment scheduling apps are a great solution to the problem of temporary hiring of staff during the hectic days of the clinics. With its historically stored data and by current analysis, it can help for the estimation of hospital requirements in the future.

One such appointment scheduling app named 10to8  comes with the chatbots or the app assistance to help the patient to make their online booking of appointments a way easier by conversing their needs and helping them with the directions. The app with its 2-way live calendar avoids overlapping of the schedules and reduces the no show-ups possibilities by 90% with its email reminder feature.

●    AI-based Telemedicine apps

Taking the inhouse hospital service to the next level, Telemedicine apps are a great solution for the hospital owners to reduce the hospital operating cost to 50%. The Telemedicine app, as the term defines is a mobile healthcare app platform that helps the patients to get themselves diagnosed sitting in their homes.

With the app facilities that provide quality healthcare to the patient through a video call reduces the healthcare cost of the patient and the doctors to a great extent. Cutting down the expense of traveling for the patient, it also reduces the hospital’s cost of full-time staff and doctors availability as they are only needed to be made available as per the appointments and the need of the patient.

Babylon, a Canadian based Telemedicine app is equipped with thousands of fully qualified therapists, physicians, and specialists that connect with the patients through the video call and are available 24/7 through the app. The app has a special feature called AI-enabled symptom checker (chatbot) which stores a huge database of medical information that helps the user by suggesting the right medicine for their symptoms.

This online healthcare service reduces the rush for the physical meets to the hospitals, benefiting the hospital owners and doctors to earn money virtually without investing much.

●    Virtual healthcare solutions/ software

Finally moving to the last and the most advanced way of digitizing healthcare while reducing the hospital’s cost through technology, that is a virtual healthcare solution. This is the software with a powerpack solution for streamlining operations of all niches of the healthcare industry.

Starting from physicians, DOC, nurses, RPN, and pharmacists, this all-in-one virtual care solution is designed to modernize the work of all these professionals to help them treat their patients remotely.

Writi, a virtual healthcare solution designed by a healthcare startup for LTC home operation is one such real example of this extraordinary virtual solution. This software is designed to give quality and connected care to the patients by combining the efforts of everybody possible through an app.

The app allows, the DOC to instruct and assign work to the nurse, the nurses are given access to create profiles of the patients, storing and updating the information while also setting a reminder for each patients medicine and health checkup, she can also schedule the virtual call with the physician based on his schedule and the need of the patient.

These physicians then diagnose patients through the video call and update the treatment or medicine through digital notes while sending a prescription to the pharmacist through efax, which are then delivered or collected from the store.

As this setup is completely virtual, the hospital owners have to pay a one-time setup cost and are free from the additional costs of operations.

Final thought

Modern problems need modern solutions. The increasing craze and focus of Canadians on healthcare has burdened the healthcare industry to find smart solutions to reduce the cost and streamline the operations.

The technologies solutions mentioned above are a part of one such step towards the digitization of healthcare which is still evolving and needs the acceptance and adoption by the healthcare professionals. These are the only alternatives that can help the industry move while keeping the expense and the profit ratio well-balanced.

Author bio :

Parth Patel is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of SyS Creations – Managed IT services in Ontario. He has been serving in Canadian healthcare industry for more than 7 years. Along with his team, Parth Patel has earned expertise in customized app development and even developed a virtual healthcare solution for long-term care homes.