Information technology’s role in healthcare has grown tremendously since 2020. Due to patient privacy rights, your medical office should have transparent technology that’s easy to use, but not every office is up to date.
Healthcare IT should be a priority and your partner in HIPAA compliance and ensuring your patients’ safety. Here is how IT and healthcare mesh for modernized healthcare.
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Electronic Health Records
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) created a meaningful use criteria to incentivize healthcare providers to use new technology to keep patient records and use it to improve patient outcomes and save healthcare dollars.
According to CMS, electronic health records benefit both patients and health care providers in the following ways:
- Increased efficiency because information is ready on demand. Prescriptions can be ordered and filled out before leaving the office and insurance claims are filed at once.
- Improved health care because treatments and prescriptions are always up to date, regardless of provider. Reminders and instructions for patients are available through patient portals and automated text messaging systems.
- Reduced costs due to less paperwork, reduced duplication of testing, and improved safety of having allergies listed on an easy-to-use system.
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Telehealth
Telemedicine, also known as telehealth, allows patients to see their physician from the comfort of their home using a secure, web-based platform like Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Typically, they can also access records in the same application or patient portal.
With the rise of telehealth and healthcare portals, custom app development will become a forefront in 2022. We can already see mobile applications like Austin Regional Clinic’s MyChart portal and MyBSWHealth.
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Disaster Recovery
Your patients’ medical records and billing information are too important to be lost due to a power outage or failed hard drive. You need a disaster recovery plan to ensure your data is safe at any moment.
Disaster recovery plans can include the following:
- Conducting a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) on each application or system to help you make a valuable assessment on what systems get priority during downtime.
- Decide Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs).
- Create a contingency plan, as required by HIPAA, in case a natural disaster or cyber-attack occurs. The Department of Health and Human Services offers an audit plan that adheres to HIPAA compliance.
- Define the disaster recovery plan and ensure it is understood by key players within and outside IT. Every decision maker should know about this plan. Frequently test this plan as well with the help of your IT team.
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Trust in Us for Your Healthcare IT Services
Is it time to modernize your medical office? GoKallIT is your outsourced IT partner for any healthcare provider.
We tailor our services strategically to ensure you have everything you need for HIPAA compliance and patient safety.
Contact us today for our managed healthcare IT services.
