Almost on a daily basis, we get to read about failed healthcare IT projects in various media. The problem is global. However, the actual software solution provider may not always be the one to blame ‒  instead, the reason may lie in the fact that the healthcare organization doesn’t really know what it is acquiring.

Shift.xlsx, annual plan.xls, resource planning Excel, mighty Excel, smart Excel... The world revolves around spreadsheets. These magical inventions are the primary planning tools in almost every organization. Why? Let’s take a closer look at where Excel works well, and the areas where it’s about time to give up using it for efficient healthcare resource management.

In my previous blog posts, I wrote about the benefits of patient flow management in terms of numbers. In part 1, I focused on the benefits of self service at the front desk and in part 2 I discussed the benefits from the healthcare units' perspective.

In healthcare, one of the biggest challenges has always been the organization of diagnostics and treatment of contagious diseases in hospitals and health centers. It’s effective to focus complex healthcare actions requiring a lot of professionals and equipment under one roof. At the same time, because of this way of organizing, a large number of people having an infectious disease, such as influenza or Covid-19, may be sitting in the same waiting room. In that room, one patient can expose many other people to the disease, although a health center should be a place to seek cure for illnesses, not the other way around.

Patient experience describes an individual’s experience of their issue, whether it is an illness or an accident, and how healthcare treats that problem. Over the past ten years, many organizations have launched and completed projects to improve the overall patient experience.

In my previous blog post, I introduced you to the benefits of self service at the front desk, where patients check in, fill out their patient history forms, and pay their invoices. This time, I’ll focus on improving the efficiency of healthcare processes by reducing idle time - and on explaining the calculations involved.