The concepts of quality management in healthcare can be named as some of the activities in which the appropriate management processes are of vital importance. Hospital quality means, in simple words, to ensure that the health of patients and other participants in the process, like companions and the staff, is preserved and, where possible, free of risks.
Procedures are tested to exhaustion; tight controls are employed, continuous training is necessary, sensitive and perishable logistical materials and high-value equipment should be managed and maintained. And this is just the beginning of a long list of key activities.
Every time we detail everything you need to do to ensure hospital quality, this fact becomes clearer: only a BPM system can help such an organization managing such complex processes.
Check out: 3 Tools for Quality Management and Processes, here.
Concepts of quality management in healthcare using BPM
A challenge in this area is to harmonize the actions of senior management professionals who dominate different areas of knowledge: medicine, business, law and even marketing, among others. Being medical professionals in a prominent position, you need to show them that they can place their trust in the other professionals involved and that they can contribute to hospital quality, each performing to the best of their specialties.
At this point, the importance of corporate governance is clear. The intercommunication between the areas, the transparency, agility in achieving safe and reliable shared information, the use of management panels (dashboards) can substantially contribute to all of this. And these elements must be present in a good BPM system. Following this line of reasoning, we list the main benefits that process management aided by BPM tools can bring to hospital quality:
- Effective participation of many management professionals
- Strategic planning
- Alignment of process strategies
- Creation of an efficient control system
- Use of monitoring tools
- Integration of planning, management, and control
- Continuous process improvement
- Proper treatment of anomalies
- Agile risk management
- Facility for adopting new technology and procedures
- Adapting to new external changes faster
- Knowledge exchange and sharing
- Maintenance of knowledge and expertise in the organization
- Continuous pursuit of excellence
See also: How to improve efficiency in your organization, find out here.
BPM benefits for medical clinics
In addition to the concepts of quality management in healthcare for large institutions, BPM can also help many health professionals who consider themselves accomplished in their profession and are proud to have, throughout their career, established a medical clinic recognized by the health community, sought by a satisfied clientele and operated by highly qualified professionals.
In many cases, these clinics have several partners, sometimes specialists in various areas (but usually related) of medicine.
Achieved success, rewarding professional life … however: having administrative problems.
And this is not a mark against these professionals. After all, their area of expertise is health, not administration.
Often, the solution to this is the adoption of a BPM system that will facilitate the management of processes, hiring, the organization of customer records and suppliers and many other activities that can be summarized below:
- Registration of clients with complete information about health plans, history of consultations and examinations, family relationship with other clients etc.
- Registration of suppliers with a history of buying and prices, on time deliveries, etc.
- Registration of worthwhile lobbyists
- Scheduled appointment calendar integrated with the other cited information (exam history etc)
- Organization of accounts receivable and payable and construction of a cash flow that does not mix personal accounts with the current account of the company
- Organization of financial documents needed by Accountants to calculate income tax
Another point worth mentioning in particular, especially for larger clinics that have several associated doctors, is the standardization of processes. It allows the change-over of health employees or the hiring of new professionals to meet functions that are already properly designed and optimized.
When using the BPM system to operate them, the new employee will be integrated much more quickly and much more efficiently and effectively. Also, the supervision, monitoring, and quality control activities will be much agiler and assertive.
As it turns out, it is not only hospitals that can benefit from the concepts of quality management in healthcare using BPM; smaller medical clinics can also enjoy the benefits.
See more: Check out the benefits of business process management here.