Friday 15 February 2013

Digital Culture and Urgent Care Centers


It seems that recently there has been a massive rise in diseases, such as infectious diseases, contagious diseases, food-borne illnesses, communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases, airborne diseases, lifestyle diseases, mental disorders, organic diseases and so on.  Among the major and critical types of diseases that the world now suffers from include cancers, viral infections, bacterial infections, autoimmune diseases, heart disease, digestive diseases, thyroid diseases, blood diseases, nurodegenerative diseases, sexually transmitted diseases and so many more the list can seem endless.  When looking at the present state of the healthcare industry, comprising of the whole community of providers and professionals along with the corresponding infrastructure, it appears that it will have trouble when facing the challenges presented by these diseases and trying to meet the ever increasing demand for healthcare services as a result.  As the methods and techniques used for diagnosis and treatment of all diseases are quite different and varied, simply managing the ever increasing amount of information pertaining to treatments would have been nearly impossible in years past.  Fortunately, the healthcare industry has been taking advantage of the advancements in computers and information technology.

The changes taking place in the Healthcare Sector

In a sign of progress, like any other successful modern and futuristic sector of economy, the healthcare industry has also taken the right steps and has adapted to the changing environment of today’s digital culture and new technology.  Thanks to powerful computer software especially designed for healthcare management, it has become easy, simple and extremely fast to access, retrieve and manage any information pertaining to the healthcare industry. Consequently, every segment of the healthcare industry, including the government, policy makers, health professionals, health workforce, hospitals, clinics, health departments, health insurance agencies and many more now can have access to systems that maintain every sort of record, report, file, information or data necessary and thus ensuring better care for patients.  With these solutions, the industry always has up to date information, which can prove critical in prescribing the right treatments.  Because of this, it is well prepared and ready to deliver its best ever level of service to sick patients by utilizing the strengths of the various systems. Healthcare information management systems have made it possible for a patient to receive efficient, timely and quality healthcare at affordable prices.   As a result, both the patient and the healthcare system have greatly benefited from the massive changes taking place in the healthcare industry as a whole due to digitization of information.

Urgent Care Centers to benefit from the New Environment

We always consider the treatment of a patient to be important, but the management of information in a medical facility like an urgent care center is equally important.  The benefits of the management of this information are quite numerous.  In order to ensure quality and efficient patient-care service, it is vital to maintain records relating to patients history; diseases, diagnosis, tests, reports etc. for routine as well as future use.  Urgent care centers or walk in clinics which are patient satisfaction oriented, aim to provide fast and quick delivery of care.   For this, they need a way to facilitate the easy and ready retrieval of information pertaining to any particular case.  If no proper recording and storing of information has been done well in advance, it would be quite impossible to find the data needed for an urgent case.  Even with the old paper filing system, it was very easy to misplace or lose a record, leading to countless situations where doctors needed to access required information on a patient and were unable to do so.  It would be nearly impossible to overcome this sort of situation and retain a patient.

Managing Records has become Easy and Simple

Let us recall the traditional paper based health record management system and the difficulties experienced in maintaining, storing, keeping and regaining records when required.  Thanks to information technology, the task of processing and managing health records in hospitals, primary care centers, clinics, urgent care centers has become very simple and efficient.  Specifically, urgent care centers, which attend to a large number of serious but not life-threatening ailments and injuries, and which are also considered the best option for fast and cost effective treatment of any common ailment like fever, cough and cold etc., can reap significant benefits through the use of information technology.

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