With populations growing through the roof in the US, hospitals are struggling to cope with the added pressure. With patients requiring emergency care coming through the doors throughout the day, it means other patients are having to wait longer for their scheduled appointments. This is, of course, at no fault of the hospitals, it’s simply a problem with a lack of qualified doctors and nurses and the growing population. However, hospitals around the world are implementing new technology to better serve their patients, and it means such patients are getting dealt with much quicker than before. Let’s have a look at some of the technology they’ve implemented to improve waiting times.
Patient Pagers
Waiting rooms are usually jam-packed with impatient people awaiting their turn to see the physician. It means receptionists and nurses are spending time keeping such areas calm, when they could be spending that time caring for their patients. With new technology and waiting room solutions such as patient pagers, it means patients can wander around the grounds of the hospitals and they’ll get paged when they’re ready to be seen. It’s a simple solution to the growing problem of too many patients being in the waiting room at any one time.
Big Data
Big data is playing a crucial role in many industries today, and it’s also relied upon in hospital environments. While big data is primarily used for the backend management of a hospital, it’s still relieving lots of pressure on staff in terms of being able to find the right patient data as and when they need it. Of course, big data is also used for analytical purposes so hospitals can keep improving their overall service.
Health Informatics
Healthcare Informatics is similar to big data in a sense, except it’s primarily used to store, retrieve, and edit patient information and other records. It’s helping doctors and nurses find the data they need when they need it. Health informatics professionals are key to improving the overall efficiency in hospital environments as far as patient care is concerned.
Other Handheld Devices
With tablets and iPads making an introduction in recent years, it means staff can better manage their paperwork and have more time to care for their patients. This helps speed up care and, therefore, relieves pressure in the waiting rooms. Staff still use pagers and other mobile devices to get in contact with other colleagues throughout the day, and they don’t look like they’ll be making an exit anytime soon. In fact, pager technology is still improving even though it’s been serving the industry for well over 30 years.
Hospitals are forever under pressure to deal with the huge volumes of patients that seek care on a daily basis, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change any time soon. With a lack of healthcare professionals being trained, and with populations rising, hospitals will continue to struggle. However, with better technology now at their disposal, they’re constantly making strides as far as providing an efficient service for their patients is concerned.