Operational Challenges Faced by Hospitals
    The main operational challenges faced by hospitals can be broadly categorized as:
         Current Healthcare Requirements
         • The current healthcare environment has made it critically important that hospital costs 
          and quality be managed in an integrated fashion
         • Healthcare reforms are expected to make most reduction and quality enhancement 
          more important
         • Hospital processes should be more patient-centric to give more patient satisfaction
         • Healthcare processes should be receptive to adopting cutting edge technology
         • Public and private partnership for setting up Super-specialty hospitals
         • Ambulances fitted with GPS and Mobile App to improve emergency care and reduce 
          mortality rate
         • Post treatment Patient feedback to improve the quality of care at hospitals
         • Provision of Turn-around-time reports to improve long waits before or between 
          appointments,  movement of patients for different procedures etc. 
                      How Can Information Technology Help?
                      • Information Technology is not just a tool – it is an enabler to achieve the 
                         business goals
                      • Information technology has the potential to give doctors and providers of 
                         medical care a much more complete picture of the patient in front of them, and 
                         patients a much easier way to access their complete medical history
                      • HIS is an element of health informatics that focuses mainly on the 
                         administrational needs of hospitals
                      • In many implementations, a HIS is a comprehensive, integrated information 
                         system designed to manage all the aspects of a hospital's operation such as: 
                            •  Medical
                            •  Administrative
                            •  Financial, and 
                            •  Legal issues and the corresponding processing of services.
    Uses of HIS
    • The HIS is basically the core transactional system of the 
    hospital. It is often the:
     • main point of data entry for almost all hospital transactions, 
      including patient registration, admissions, and order charges.
     • main database and storage facility for all transactions
     • main source of census and reports for hospital management, 
      including patient counts, admission numbers and financial 
      reports.
    • The most commonly-available modules in an HIS give a 
    hint of the wide coverage of transactions handled by the 
    system. 
    Advantages and Benefits of HIS
    • There are several benefits of using an IT system to streamline hospital 
    operations.
     • Data is entered at the source. No more paper slips passed around and 
      handed to an encoder.
     • Quick access and retrieval to patient information and hospital transactions.
     • Easy monitoring of supplies, inventory and medicines.
     • Reduces documentation needs and minimizes use of paper.
     • Improves turn-around time for hospital procedures dependent on paper-
      based slips and logbooks.
     • Better audit controls and policy compliance.