The healthcare industry has been quick to incorporate technology in its operations. One such technology is the use of a digital patient check-in system. Thanks to this innovation, medical staff no longer need to be hands-on with a patient’s initial registration process when it’s their first time visiting a clinic or hospital. Instead, the patient can independently complete and submit their registration form before going to the location.
With more and more hospitals embracing digital patient check-in systems, here are some of the many reasons your healthcare business should start using this technology:
1. Automates Appointment Confirmation
The digital patient check-in incorporates tools, such as automated appointment confirmation, that help optimize patient scheduling. This means it’s no longer the responsibility of the medical staff to track and confirm a patient’s appointment manually. A digital check-in scheduling system makes it easier to automatically send patients email, text, or phone call reminders.
This enables staff members to focus on more critical matters and ensure that everything is running efficiently. Moreover, it lowers the likelihood that a patient will book a no-show appointment. These no-shows scheduled appointments are especially detrimental to the hospital’s operations since it affects patient engagement, revenues, and schedules.
Having an automated appointment confirmation allows you to ensure your patients never miss attending a set appointment. This is because they can easily reschedule their appointment online through the appointment setting tool.
2. Reduces Errors
Accuracy is vital to ensure everything within the healthcare institution goes according to plan. And having a digital check-in process in place plays a huge role in achieving this as it dramatically reduces the likelihood of errors happening during patient registration.
When the healthcare institution is still using a manual registration system, the patient will manually fill in their names on the registration form and give it to the hospital employee, who’ll electronically enter their details. Due to these two levels of entering the patient information, the chances of an error happening are a lot higher. The process is also extremely time-consuming.
In contrast, a digital patient check-in system streamlines this whole process by removing the multiple levels that increases the chances of human error. It comes with useful features that help patients detect possible errors, such as the verification feature that pops up before submitting the registration form. Seeing the automated error message highlighting possible incorrect details helps them avoid possible errors while completing these forms.
3. Frees Up Time For The Reception Staff
The healthcare staff at the reception desk are one of the biggest beneficiaries of a digital patient check-in system. This is because the reception staff is required to perform several tasks simultaneously, including managing phone calls, answering patient queries, completing a patient’s manual registration, and other day-to-day tasks.
This is especially more advantageous for the smaller healthcare facilities as it has helped lower the workload these staff are required to do. The digital patient check-in has helped ensure that the hospital staff, who are often overworked, have an easier time performing their duties.
A digital patient check-in system enables patients to independently check themselves into the hospital. This saves both the patient’s and staff’s time that would have otherwise been spent completing the registration process. Moreover, the hospital staff now have fewer responsibilities on their hands, so they can focus on becoming more efficient and productive when handling tasks related to patient care.
4. Supports Social Distancing
The coronavirus has made it necessary for people across the world to observe social distancing guidelines to contain the pandemic. And with this social menace that’s bound to be around for quite some time, measures have to be implemented to avoid the need for social gatherings. One way this can be achieved is through the use of a digital check-in system.
Using the digital check-in makes a healthcare facility safer since you can prevent large crowds in the waiting rooms. The traditional check-in system involves many patients gathering in the waiting rooms. When this happens, they’re more likely to touch or come into contact with objects such as pens or surfaces like counters or door handles.
An effective way to address this issue is by using a digital patient check-in system which can help reduce contact with other people. With reduced contact, the risk of transmission is considerably cut down. This helps curb the spread of this deadly
5. Improves Patient Care
Taking care of a patient’s well-being is one of the core principles of all healthcare facilities. The digital patient check-in system allows you to achieve this by cutting down the patient’s time in waiting rooms. Large crowds in the waiting room of a healthcare institution usually happen because the patient doesn’t have adequate time to complete the needed details before their appointment.
But thanks to the digital patient check-in, this shouldn’t be an issue. This is because patients can now book an appointment, fill in their personal details, and confirm their appointment online. Once the appointment draws near, a notification is sent either via email, direct link, or SMS to the patient to confirm their appointment. To use the digital check-in system, patients only need to have internet access and a smartphone, tablet, or computer to book their appointment.
6. Provides Patient With Complete Control
The use of digital check-in technology has given patients a greater amount of control and transparency over how they go about booking an appointment. And with most of the patients nowadays being technology savvy, they opt for healthcare facilities that embrace such technological innovations to enhance their entire experience. With a digital patient check-in system, patients get to know how much they’ll spend right after checking in.
7. Reduces Costs
Many healthcare facilities are adopting the use of digital check-in technology to lower their total operating costs. This usually happens because this updated check-in technology ensures that the process is a lot faster since there’s no need for paperwork. This saves the hospital certain costs associated with manual check-ins, such as buying paper or investing in storage cabinets. Also, this ensures there’s no need to hire additional hospital staff to help deal with the bulk of the paperwork.
The digital patient check-in system also allows the healthcare staff to focus their attention on other crucial administrative duties instead of toiling over the paperwork. This helps significantly improve the care provided to each patient.
8. Improves Waiting Experience
The time patients spend in the waiting room will significantly affect how they judge their experience in any healthcare facility. And to avoid a possible negative experience that will negatively affect your business, investing in a digital patient check-in system is a good idea. With this system in place, patients will no longer have to worry about spending a considerable amount of time in the waiting room.
Instead, patients can relax at their preferred location, either at home, a café, or in their offices, while attending to other activities, be it working or listening to music. This digital patient check-in system improves your healthcare’s appeal to potential patients as they don’t have to endure a horrible waiting room experience.
9. Increases The Patient’s Willingness To Adopt The Patient Portal
Some patients may be very reluctant to use the patient portal. One effective way of convincing them to use the system is by getting them used to the digital patient check-in process. This is because the digital patient check-in system enables your patients the chance to try out the patient portal. Consequently, they’ll get to appreciate the importance of using the patient portal, which not only improves their healthcare engagement, but also keeps them better informed.
10. Guarantees The Safety Of A Patient’s Information
The secure management of a patient’s information is mandatory based on current healthcare policies. Using current healthcare technology such as a digital patient check-in system allows you to achieve this as it ensures your adherence to professional and industry regulations, such as the EHR and HIPAA standards. Moreover, this system makes sharing critical information with other healthcare practitioners a lot more secure and streamlined.
11. Streamlines Workflows
The use of the digital patient check-in system has helped streamline the operations of healthcare facilities. This is because this system does away with manual tasks such as filling out forms when checking in. This reduces the amount of time the receptionist spends attending to patients, and ensures that the information being gathered is accurate.
This system also can be integrated with other tools that the institution uses such as billing, patient tracking, and insurance claims software, so everything gets done on time. Moreover, appointment waiting times are reduced, and prescriptions and referrals can be done a lot more systematically.
12. Know How Patients Found Your Healthcare Facility
Having a digital patient check-in system allows you to determine how patients came to know about your clinic. Knowing this will be beneficial since it allows you to figure out the exact sources which are drawing most of the patients to your healthcare facility. You can also include a question in the digital patient check-in system about your patient’s area of residence. With such insights, you’ll be able to know what strategies your clinic should put in place to attract more potential customers through targeted marketing.
13. Reduces Administrative Burden
The digital patient check-in system has enabled healthcare facilities to reduce their administrative burden. This is the case since the system helps track several aspects that streamline the company’s operations, including:
- Identifying the individual who’s checked in
- Knowing who’s in line
- The duration each patient waits in line
Knowing such details is essential in helping a clinic streamline its operations and alleviate its administrative burden. This is because the digital patient check-in system will inform patients when to go to the clinic.
14. Allows For Personalization
Digital patient check-in systems can be customized to suit your clinic’s specific needs. This means you can modify this system accordingly to complement your practice and ensure the seamless performance of different routine activities. The digital patient check-in system’s personalization aspect is crucial because each hospital’s practice might have slight differences.
15. Makes It A Lot Easier To Share Records
One advantage of the digital patient check-in is that it allows you quick access to the patient’s records. This feature is beneficial to doctors, especially when referring a patient to another medical professional or sending the records when the patient isn’t around.
With a digital patient check-in system, it only takes a couple of minutes for the referral doctor or patient to get the records from the past several weeks or days. And thanks to this, sharing records from the waiting room to the exam room becomes faster and more efficient. It also streamlines the process of sharing the records between different offices or hospitals.
You never again need to worry about whether everything is in order and tracking down the correct files. As a result, your team of healthcare experts saves a lot of time that would have been otherwise spent comparing the details on these two sources.
16. Less Confusion
Another advantage of using a digital patient check-in system is that patients don’t have to worry about getting confused on certain issues. This is because they readily have in hand any vital information they need, such as the room where they’ll find the doctor that will attend to them. Knowing such details saves the patient from any confusion after getting to the hospital or clinic. It also saves them time, which they would have otherwise wasted consulting the hospital staff inquiring about the location of a physician’s office.
Takeaway
One of a healthcare provider’s many goals is to ensure the smooth operations of all their activities. The use of digital patient check-in system has transformed this goal into reality, as it has helped significantly streamline a clinic or hospital’s operations. If you weren’t convinced of the need for a digital patient check-in system, this article has highlighted some of its benefits. It’s clear that adopting this useful technology is crucial for your healthcare facility’s success.
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