As healthcare organizations continue to streamline processes and workflows, the secure and timely delivery of patient information is critical to both the health of these institutions and the patients they serve.
Think of the many types of documents used every day in hospitals and doctors’ offices. There are patient intake forms, discharge papers, and rounds reports, of course. But there are also wristbands and barcode labels that ensure the right medication, test, or treatment gets to the right patient at exactly the right time. When this does not happen, the results can be tragic.
Here in the United Kingdom, the National Health Service (NHS) trusts provide a variety of medical services to the citizens in their care. It is not uncommon for medical staff to visit patients at their homes, for instance, to do things like check on expecting mothers.
In a recent example, midwives would stop by to take a blood test, taking handwritten notes of patient details on a piece of paper, and then move on to the next mother’s house. At the end of the working day, the midwife would take all blood sample results to a GP surgery or the pathology department.
Obviously, that piece of paper becomes a key element of the overall healthcare workflow. Several years ago, there was a major incident where the wrong blood test result was associated to the wrong patient – with tragic consequences. The NHS trust was forced to re-examine its document processes from the ground up.
Standardize, Automate, Simplify, Fortify
Important documents are printed many times per day – and the medical teams need to be assured that they are delivered to a printer without any issue or delay. Assured and quick printing of the document is absolutely key. Each time – every time.
LRS software is designed to deliver on this requirement. The benefit of the LRS solution is improved application performance and faster, better patient care. The medical team can focus all their attention to patient care instead of worrying whether or not their document will print.
LRS works with leading Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software providers, including Cerner, to integrate our software and keep document-formatted information from falling through the cracks. Our solutions allow the IT department to simplify the task of managing print jobs, queues, and devices while relieving the Cerner application of the burden of network printing.
LRS solutions provide a standard and consistent method for sending application output to a destination. The software allows you to print, view, email and archive application output from a single platform. This streamlined approach saves clinicians time, saves money, and ensures accuracy when performing tasks such as printing, archiving and emailing information. Organizations benefit from our ability to establish:
- One platform to print, view, archive, and email
- Auditing capabilities to track printing costs and enable cross-departmental charging
- Simplified infrastructure and support
- Improved performance & reliability
- Hardware flexibility with regard to servers & devices
- Enhanced security for better PHI and HIPAA compliance
How does this translate to better patient care in the real world? For example, in the aforementioned NHS situation? Watch for my upcoming Blog post.