Investments needed to achieve savings

It has not escaped anyone’s notice that the health care sector has been facing severe cuts for some time now. Care must become cheaper, more efficient and more efficient. How is this regulated in your institution?

By investing smartly, even in times of austerity, savings in time and money can be an attractive result. Above all, the aim of healthcare staff is to provide proper care, attention and commitment to his or her patients and clients. The time that one has to spend per person is often too short to achieve this objective in its entirety.

Being differentDecisions in the field of health insurance and government can have a major impact on health care. As a result, healthcare institutions are more or less forced to think differently and look creatively for solutions. And there are many aspects of healthcare that can (and may!) be examined more closely. How can waiting times be reduced? Can we train staff so that they can also be deployed in other areas? Which equipment ensures that the required work can be automated, so that more efficiency can be achieved? These are all matters that the management of healthcare institutions is working on on a daily basis.

Information managementOne of the areas in which much can be gained is the correct organisation of information flows. All the information, such as the medical files that are created per clinic, but also the personnel files of employees and the administrative data of all processes. A mountain of information! Practice has shown that there are still large quantities of paper lying around in the care sector. And that’s where you can make a lot of profit! By digitising current information, which is regularly consulted, you can make enormous savings in terms of search time and space. Information that is missing, or that is on the desk of another specialist; that is a thing of the past. At the touch of a button, the right file appears in your current information system.

In addition, you can store the less up-to-date information physically, externally and only retrieve it when necessary. It has become clear that a very large percentage of the less up-to-date information is never retrieved again. Digitisation is then not recommended from a cost point of view. However, these physical files, which are then stored externally, must be able to be retrieved and made available in no time. The information must also be ‘on time’ in case of emergency.

SaveThink of the space that’s being saved. In health care institutions, there are quite a few dossiers to deal with. Employees can be deployed more effectively and space can be classified ‘commercially’. And yes, that costs money. Digitisation and external archiving require an investment. Nevertheless, one must realise what the long-term savings are. Investing to save. The space that is now only used as a cluttered archive also costs money, employees who spend a lot of time searching for information also cost money and incomplete information also costs money.

In healthcare, institutions must also distinguish themselves in this day and age. After all, can anyone still afford to have sensitive information on the streets? No! Security is therefore also an important issue. How is this regulated in your institution? The fact is that we all have to do more with less, not only in the health care sector, but also in the business world. So be innovative and make sure you can deliver differentiating power by optimizing inefficient processes at the back. In this way, employees can achieve the aforementioned objective. Delivering high quality care, with the attention that is needed for this.

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