Not all hospitals need the same software capabilities. A hospital managing patient records, clinical workflows, and billing will have different requirements from a facility that is only looking for an electronic health record system (EHR) or practice management software.
Here are five such platforms that help hospitals with their different day-to-day operations:
InterSystems TrakCare is an electronic health record system. It brings patient information together in a unified record and supports health data sharing between facilities and organisations. The platform also offers interconnectivity capabilities for connecting with other systems.
TrakCare includes tools for clinical workflows and decision support. The platform can integrate with other applications through APIs and connect with telehealth services.
Medinous HMS covers several areas of hospital operations. Its clinical modules include electronic medical records, nursing, operation theatre management and emergency care. Patient administration is covered through registration and appointments, outpatient management, and inpatient management.
The system also has modules for laboratory services, radiology, pharmacy and blood bank management. On the administrative side, its documented functions include billing and insurance, finance and budgeting, and inventory management. Analytics, management dashboards and a patient portal are also listed among its offerings.
ORBIS U brings several hospital functions into one electronic patient record system. Dedalus lists clinical and nursing workflows alongside patient administration and billing, and says the platform contains more than 68 integrated clinical modules. Its other documented capabilities include configurable workflows, clinical decision support and connections to third-party systems.
eClinicalWorks combines electronic health records with practice management and related healthcare IT services. Its product range includes patient portals, healow check-in, telehealth, population health tools and revenue cycle management. The company's cloud platform also includes PRISMA, which brings together patient information from participating EHRs, insurance payers and other sources
The company lists ambulatory practices, urgent care facilities, health centres and hospitals among the settings it serves.
Attune's HIS includes modules for outpatient and inpatient services, emergency care, operation theatres and nursing. It lists laboratory, radiology and pharmacy modules in its HIS offering. The system also provides an interface to PACS, which is used for medical imaging. Its administrative modules are listed separately in the product documentation.
Hospitals should assess software based on their size, services, existing IT infrastructure and operational requirements.
Before choosing a hospital management system, a hospital needs to establish which services the software must cover. This includes outpatient and inpatient care, electronic patient records and the departments that will use the system.
The evaluation should also establish how the hospital will handle billing, insurance, appointments and inventory. If these functions require separate modules or applications, that may affect implementation and integration.
A hospital should clarify the costs of integration and ongoing maintenance before signing a contract, as well as what staff training is included and how the vendor will handle technical support.
Every healthcare facility will require a different platform. Hospitals should evaluate the modules, deployment options, and total costs available.