How to Develop a Hospital Management System – 2023 Guide

Last Updated on April 16, 2023

With the ongoing digital revolution, every business from every industry has its own specific software solutions. As per reports, the global hospital information system market was valued at $105 billion in 2022 and it is expected to reach an astonishing mark of $405 billion by 2030 at a CAGR of 17.4%.

Covid-19 has already exposed the weaknesses of a traditional healthcare management system. That is why hospitals have started investing in hospital management systems. Are you planning to integrate healthcare software solutions into your healthcare organization? Then this blog is for you.

What is a Hospital Management System?

A hospital management system or HMS is a software solution to handle the multiple operations within a healthcare organization. It is a complete solution that helps in automating administrative, clinical, and financial aspects of healthcare operations.

An integrated hospital management system helps in managing patient data, scheduled appointments, medical records of patients, billing, pharmacy management, laboratory management, and inventory management.

What Makes a Hospital Management System So Vital?

Centralized Platform

A Hospital Management System offers a centralized platform that allows the efficient management of multiple hospital operations, including patient management, appointment planning, pharmacy management, even laboratory management, and more. 

Better Patient Care

Having an HMS integrated within the healthcare facility can help medical professionals improve their patient care attributes. It will help the healthcare providers access the patient’s medical records quickly and offer more attention to the patients. With an HMS in place, medical errors can be reduced significantly which automatically helps improve patient care.

Streamlined Operations

Hospital Management Systems help in establishing automation for several operations which eliminates the need for manual work. With automation operational efficiency goes high along with the reduction of the workload from hospital staff. 

Better Decision-Making

Healthcare Management Software can generate multiple reports with in-depth analytics and insights into hospital operations. These reports can help improve the healthcare facility’s administrators make decisions to improve hospital operations and patient care backed by real-time data.

Cost-Effective

A Hospital Management System or Software plays a key role in minimizing the costs related to hospital operations. By introducing automation, manual work and chances of errors gets limited which helps in restricting the expenses of a healthcare facility.

Planning to integrate a Hospital Management System into your healthcare organization? Talk to our experts to identify the potential of a Hospital Management System within your organization. Contact us now.

How Does a Hospital Management System Work?

• Patient Registration- A patient needs to provide his personal details like name, contact details, medical condition if known, and more.

• Appointment Booking- The Hospital Management System schedules appointments for patients with doctors, laboratories, nurses, and other healthcare providers as per their availability.

• Health Records- Doctors and other healthcare professionals update the electronic health records or EHR of patients with their diagnosis, medication, and other treatment procedures.

• Billing- Once a patient receives his healthcare service the Hospital Management System generates invoices for the offered services. The patients can make the payments directly or via the insurance providers.

• Inventory Management- The Hospital Management System manages the inventory by tacking medical supplies, and equipment, and also notifying the hospital staff when the supplies are running low.

• Laboratory Management- The HMS system also manages the laboratory activities like scheduling tests, tracking test results, and more.

• Pharmacy Management- The Hospital Management Software tracks and manages the pharmacy operations as well like tracking medication inventory, dispensing medications, and administering medications.

• Doctor & Nurse Management- The system is responsible for managing the schedule of doctors and nurses along with assigning them tasks and tracking their progress.

• Security- To maintain the security of the hospital the Healthcare Management Software system controls the access to valuable patient information and hospital data.

• Reports- The system also generates insightful reports to simplify and improve the decision-making process.

Key Features of a Hospital Management Software

Features for Patients in Hospital Management Software

• Login- Hospital Management Software must be user-friendly and to start giving a user-friendly experience software needs to have an easy login system where the patients can log in using their email ids or biometric data.

• Homepage- When a patient logs in he must be able to see all the relevant data regarding his health and treatment on the dashboard.

• Upcoming Events- Patients must have the option to easily check their next appointments, treatments, and any other healthcare events planned with the hospital.

• Reminders- When a patient’s appointment date is closer he must receive a reminder notification from the Hospital Management System. Apart from appointment notifications the software system can have medicine reminders, laboratory test reminders, and more.

• Communicate with Care Team- Patients must have the option to communicate with their respective care teams through the Hospital Management System.

• Appointment & Scheduling- An option to schedule doctor appointments, lab appointments, or even cancel the scheduled appointments must be available in Healthcare Management Software.

• Treatment Plan- A treatment plan feature where patients can view the plans created by healthcare professionals can be really helpful for the patients.

• Chats- To maintain smooth communication and as per the requirements both one on one and group chat functions must be available in a patient-side app of an HMS.

• Payment- To offer the patients complete digital flexibility in payment activities multiple payment gateways must be integrated within the system.

• Health Reports- The flexibility to view and download medical test reports, doctor prescriptions, and more through the Hospital Management System can be a huge boost for the user experience.

• Telemedicine Solution- In case a patient cannot visit the hospital for his scheduled check a telemedicine feature can help where the doctors or the complete healthcare team can engage in a video call with the patient to offer a remote consultation.

• Support- An SOS feature can be added within the HMS for the patients which will allow the patients to share their location with the healthcare providers during an emergency.

Features for Doctors in Hospital Management Software

• Profile- Doctors must have the option to manage and control their profiles on the Healthcare Management System. They must have the option to mark themselves as available and unavailable to patients.

• Upcoming Events- Similar to patients, doctors also need an upcoming events feature in the Hospital Management System to view the schedule of their upcoming days.

• Reminders- A feature to keep the doctors reminded about their appointments, meetings, and other healthcare-related activities is a great addition to an HMS.

• Missed Messages- The responsibility of a doctor is very critical in a patient’s health recovery. But most of the time they are so busy treating patients that they miss messages from patients or other healthcare workers. A missed message feature to alert the doctor about missed messages is a must-have one in Hospital Management Software.

• Latest Updates- In the Hospital Management System a feature to showcase the latest updates in the healthcare industry or within the healthcare organization can help the professionals stay concurrent with the ongoing changes.

• Patient Management- A feature to manage the patient’s information, medical history, and medical test reports in the Hospital Management System can be perfect for doctors to use the software efficiently. Apart from that patient’s appointment calendar will also help the doctor to know about the patient’s previous or next appointments.

• Notes- Doctors must have the option to note the critical findings or any other valuable information about a patient in the Hospital Management System.

• Communication- To offer patients remote consultation service a 1 on 1 text, voice, or video call chat feature must be integrated into a Hospital Management System.

• Care Team- Within the Healthcare Management System a care team feature will help the doctor to identify the other healthcare professionals associated with the treatment of a specific patient and communicate with them.

• FAQs- As a  doctor is always busy treating patients integrating a FAQs feature where the doctor can just select the common questions to be asked to a patient in a healthcare consultation.

Features for Hospital Staff in Hospital Management Software

• Patient Management- Similar to doctors, hospital administrators also need a patient management feature where they can easily access patient information, medical conditions, and treatment history.

• Doctor Management- Just like the patient management feature, a feature to manage the doctors’ information, schedule, and track their availability can help hospitals to streamline their healthcare services.

• Nurse Management- A nurse management feature to track and manage nurses’ information, schedule, and assigned duties also helps a healthcare organization in planning for the coming days.

• Appointment Scheduling- An appointment scheduling feature will allow hospitals to manage already scheduled appointments, schedule new appointments, and reschedule appointments for both patients and doctors.

• Electronic Health Records (EHR)- An EHR feature will enable hospitals to store, manage, and update electronic medical records of the patients available in the Hospital Management System.

• Finances & Billing- As the name suggests this feature will help the hospitals to manage their finances as well as handle the billing of the provided healthcare services.

• Inventory Management- A hospital should always have a loaded inventory to offer top-quality healthcare services. That is why an inventory management feature to manage inventory, procurement, and supply chain management of medical supplies and equipment is a must in a Hospital Management System.

• Laboratory Management- A feature to manage lab services like blood tests, thyroid tests, urine tests, tumor markers, and more including the reports of the tests can fasten the healthcare services efficiently.

• Pharmacy Management- To track and manage the sales and other relevant information from the pharmacy a pharmacy management feature can be beneficial for a Hospital Management System.

• Reports & Analytics- To make better decisions, a reports and analytics feature that generates insightful reports can be integrated into a Hospital Management System.

• Security & Access Control- To keep the security of hospitals and patients’ information a feature that allows the hospital authorities to manage and control the access to valuable data must be integrated into the Hospital Management Software.

Want to know more about the exciting features of a Hospital Management System? Click here and talk to our experts today.

Different Modules of a Hospital Management System

• Patient Management System- This module of the Hospital Management System includes patient registration, appointment scheduling, admission, discharge, shift or transfer, medical records, and EHR.

• Doctor Management System- The doctor management module involves doctor registration, appointment scheduling, virtual consultation, prescription, and treatment plans.

• Drug Management System- The drug management module is to manage the pharmacy inventory, prescriptions, medication dispensing, and billing.

• Administrative Rights Management System- The administrative rights management system is for the management of access to sensitive information, passwords, and role-based authorization.

• Online Appointment Management System- The online appointment management system allows the patients to book appointments over the Internet and it also includes scheduling, rescheduling, or canceling the booked appointments.

• Invoice Management System- The invoice management module is for billing, insurance claim-related activities, and financial report generation.

• Medical Service System- All the medical services offered by the hospital like emergency services, inpatient services, outpatient services, and operational or surgical services are handled by this module.

• Doctor Services Report System- To track information like the number of patients seen, types of medical services offered, and duration of each consultation of a doctor this module is utilized.

• Lab Test System- Activities like test orders, sample collection, test results management, and test report generation can be tracked and monitored using the lab test system.

• Patient Feedback System- Once a patient has received complete treatment this module is used to collect his feedback and improve the services offered by the hospital.

How to Develop a Hospital Management Software?

If you are still reading this it means you are interested in developing a Hospital Management System. These are steps to follow while building your own Hospital Management System:

• Mark Out Requirements- The very first step is to find out your requirements for the HMS. You will be required to identify the required modules, features, functions, and integration requirements for the Healthcare Management Software.

• Plan the Process- The second step is about planning the development process. This step includes the selection of the development team members’ roles and responsibilities, creating a complete project plan with realistic checkpoints, and the timeline.

• Design the System- Once you have marked out the requirements and prepared a plan it is time to begin designing the system. This step will involve activities like creating wireframes, UI/UX designs, and even technical specifications.

• Develop the System- As soon as the design is ready, you can shift to the development phase. In the development step writing code, integrating modules, and trying and testing the prepared Hospital Management System is necessary.

• Test the System- When the HMS is ready, rigorous testing is highly recommended to identify the bugs and flaws to be addressed in the software solution.

• Deploy the System- Once the Hospital Management System is tested and verified for deployment it is time to deploy. In this step setting up the infrastructure, installing the software on the healthcare organization system, and configuration are required to be done.

Key Considerations While Developing a Hospital Management System

Although the process to develop a Hospital Management System seems simple and easy there are a few considerable factors that if ignored can disrupt the whole process and even lead to developing a useless system. Here are some of the key considerable factors:

• User Needs- Before starting the development it is important to identify and target the right requirements of the doctors, hospital staff, and patients.

• Security- The security of patient information and hospital data should be your top priority when developing a Hospital Management system.

• Scalability- Requirements of a healthcare organization will always change with time so it is recommended that the HMS you will be developing must be scalable.

• Integration- You must consider your current systems when developing the Hospital Management System. It will help you to create a solution that is able to integrate with the existing systems.

• User-Friendliness- The Healthcare Management System must be highly user-friendly for all of the users including hospital staff, doctors, and patients.

• Compliance- You must keep an eye on the system’s compliance aspect to avoid any legal trouble in the future.

• Cost- You must consider the cost of developing the Hospital Management System along with its ROI capabilities.

Have an idea or getting confused about your Hospital Management Software? We can help you out. Contact us now.

Introduce a New Hospital Management System to Your Staff

• Explain the Purpose- The first thing you should do is explain why you are integrating a new Hospital Management System into the organization. Explain the benefits of the new system to them to keep them engaged in the process.

• Offer Training- To help them get used to the new Hospital Management System you should conduct training sessions where they will be given real-life activities to perform via the system under the supervision of a knowledgeable person or people.

• Encourage Them with Rewards- To keep the staff encouraged in adopting the new Healthcare System, you must offer them rewards for completing training sessions like a public leaderboard where the best performer will be at the top.

How Much Does it Cost to Develop a Hospital Management System?

When you plan to develop a Hospital Management System the most inevitable question is “How much will it cost to be developed?”. 

So here is your answer. The development cost of a custom Hospital Management System or Software varies based on factors like the size of your healthcare organization, features to be integrated, the complexity of the solution, technologies to be used, and more. 

Taking into account all of these factors, the cost of custom Hospital Management Software can range anywhere from $10,000 to $200,000. However, it’s important to note that the final cost may exceed this range depending on your specific requirements.

To get a more detailed idea about your Hospital Management System’s development cost reach out to our experts now. Click here to contact us.

Oyelabs Can Help You Develop Hospital Management Software

Hospital Management Systems are critical as it automates several processes in a healthcare organization. That is why we recommend you join hands with a team of seasoned experts like Oyelabs. 

At Oyelabs we have a  team of highly skilled professionals with years of experience in developing healthcare solutions. We specialize in Hospital Management Software Development to provide you with world-class solutions that can automate your healthcare organization’s processes and elevate your overall efficiency.

Contact us now to book a free consultation with the industry-leading experts and discuss your Hospital Management System plans.

Wrapping up

In conclusion, Hospital Management Software is a valuable tool for automating healthcare management processes and improving the efficiency of healthcare organizations. By integrating key features, following the right development process, and integrating the solution properly into your current setup, you too can reap the benefits of this software.

Whether you’re looking to streamline patient management, medical records, inventory management, billing, or other healthcare processes, the right Hospital Management Software can make a significant difference. It can help reduce manual errors, increase accuracy and speed, improve patient care, and enhance overall productivity.

Therefore, if you’re looking to improve your healthcare organization’s efficiency and streamline your processes, consider implementing Hospital Management Software. With the right software and a reliable development partner like Oyelabs, you can take your healthcare organization to the next level.

 

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