In the past, hospital boards and committees had no statutory duty to ensure a particular level of quality when delivering healthcare. However, today, that is no longer the case. Patient outcomes and regulatory compliance are now dominating the clinical governance agenda. Providing exceptional care, ensuring patient safety, and fostering a culture of quality and excellence has slowly but surely become a key priority for healthcare organisations across the globe.
That's where Quality Management Systems (QMS) come in. In a nutshell, a QMS is a comprehensive set of policies, procedures, processes, and resources implemented within a healthcare organisation to ensure patient safety and better clinical outcomes. But, there's a catch.
A vast majority of healthcare organisations still use legacy quality management systems that have been relied upon for decades. Once deemed revolutionary, they are now systems with outdated processes and limited functionalities, no longer capable of meeting the complex demands of the ever-evolving healthcare industry.
This blog post explores why organisations must move beyond the limitations of legacy systems in healthcare and transition to modern, tech-forward solutions. It also discusses how harnessing the power of digital, agile, and integrated quality management solutions can help them unlock significant benefits and position themselves at the forefront of the healthcare revolution.
The Limitations of Legacy Quality Management Systems in Healthcare
An outdated healthcare QMS can be an analog/paper-based system or a legacy software solution. While it can fulfil all the functionalities it was originally designed to do, it does not allow for growth. Simply put, what the system does for the organisation now is all it will ever do.
Legacy systems are characterised by rigid structures, fragmented processes, and limited functionalities. Some of the major drawbacks of such a solution include:
Lack of integration with other healthcare technologies and systems, leading to silos of data and disjointed workflows
Inability to customise the system according to evolving requirements and regulations
Manual data entry that is time-consuming, prone to error, and hard to track
Poor analytical and reporting capabilities, which pose a challenge in the extraction of insightful data
High costs associated with maintaining, upgrading, and supporting the system on a day-to-day basis
More prone to security and data privacy risks, which, in turn, can compromise sensitive patient data
When Do You Know It's Time to Transition to a Modern Healthcare Quality Management Solution?
Healthcare organisations often hesitate to replace legacy systems they've used for years to get the minimum job done in favour of a more robust, modern solution. This can be for a variety of reasons — fear of change, lack of resources (capital, time, and workforce), or simply because they don't know where to start.
And while moving to a modern healthcare quality management solution is a big and crucial decision for any organisation, there are some common signs to indicate that it is absolutely time to make the transition:
There are still a considerable number of manual quality processes and workflows that staff have to do on a day-to-day basis, which can easily be automated or semi-automated.
The quality management system is entirely dependent on local hardware infrastructure and cannot be moved to the cloud.
The system is siloed, and integration or data exchange with other systems within your organisation is impossible.
The software performance of the system is slow, with frequent glitches, crashes, or bugs.
Clinical staff still use Excel spreadsheets and paper documents to track quality processes, perform audits, analyse data and performance, and assign tasks to other team members.
Your quality management software vendor doesn't update the product with newer versions, provides minimal to no support, and the product offers no flexibility to customise according to your requirements.
If you're facing one or more of the above issues, consider moving beyond your existing system and implementing a modern healthcare QMS.
The Transformative Potential of A Modern Quality Management Software
According to a study conducted by the University of Michigan, switching from paper to electronic health records led to a 3% reduction in the cost of outpatient care. This translates to a savings of $5.14 per patient per month. And while that might sound small, if sustained or even increased, would be substantial.
If something as simple as introducing electronic health records can have such a noticeable result, then the impact of replacing legacy and paper-based quality systems with a modern, state-of-the-art digital system is truly transformational.
A modern QMS of the future will allow healthcare organisations to streamline all their quality workflows, automate processes, seamlessly communicate and collaborate across departments, provide real-time visibility into quality data, and empower them to drive continuous improvement.
If you're unsure of how to start the process of transitioning from a legacy system to a tech-forward digital solution, then our buyer's guide is a must-read! You can also reach out to us if you have any questions and want to learn more about how MEG can help your organisation radically transform your quality management.