The healthcare industry is renowned for being a busy, high pressured and time-poor environment.

Employees talk of being squeezed to the limit when it comes to fitting all their tasks into one day, and managers wish for ways of automating cumbersome tasks so that efficiency can be improved and spending can be reduced.

As a result, many healthcare providers turn to software to help them keep on top of everything.

But what kind of software do you need when you’re working in the healthcare industry? What’s worth spending money on when it comes to making an initial investment, and what’s worth spending time on when it comes to training?

Well, here are a handful of tips that are worth their weight in gold…

Electronic health record software

In order for healthcare providers to keep on top of files and sensitive information regarding their patients, it’s important to keep electronic health records.

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The best way to do this is to use dedicated electronic health record (EHR) software to keep up to date records on a centralised database.

So, if you’re working in the healthcare industry, getting the kind of software supplied by iSALUS installed on your company’s devices should be at the top of your list of priorities.

iSALUS’s software boasts lots of helpful features so that you can create new records for patients, update records when necessary and use templates to ensure that time is spent in the most efficient way possible.

This software is also useful for billing, on-boarding and set up, and online reviews are very positive regarding the software’s features and customer support services too.

Health and safety software

Another piece of software you’re going to need in the healthcare industry is one that enables you to track health and safety incidents.

Health and safety incidents (harm to the physical or mental wellbeing of your employees) do unfortunately occur from time to time, despite best efforts to the contrary.

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However, having software in place to document incidents, analyse them and learn valuable lessons will reduce the likelihood of them recurring in future, and in turn will make your healthcare practice a safer and ultimately more profitable business to run.

Airsweb health and safety software will allow you to do precisely this, with solutions including risk assessment, incident management and action tracking software, as well as other products.

Airsweb provides software and support for some major clients, some of which were among the winners of the prestigious RoSPA Health and Safety awards 2016.

Patient communications software

Finally, if you’ve been working in the healthcare industry for even a short amount of time, you’ll have noticed that patient communications take up a lot of man hours.

Patients will contact you to make, change and cancel appointments, ask questions, provide feedback and more… So, a key piece of software you’ll need is one that automates or increases the efficiency of patient communications.

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PatientComms automates the sending of appointment reminders via emails, SMS text messages and personalised direct mail. It also sends out surveys, marketing resources (such as updates on your latest services, availability and treatments), as well as providing your patients with a forum to contact you on.

So, those working in the healthcare industry should use this kind of software if they want to make it easier to keep in touch with patients.

Why not give it a go and see if you notice a rise in attendance at appointments, for example?