Of the numerous difficulties and challenges facing the healthcare sector, specific pain points take prominence. Common in every aspect of patient care and treatment, the major areas regarding healthcare challenges involve cost, equity in care, technological shortcomings, and provider shortages. These are daunting, even for large-scale healthcare organizations.
Private medical practices also risk falling behind, juggling the iterative nature of new technology while adapting to modern healthcare demands. In this sea of growth and uncertainty, where does the Dragon Medical One dictation software fit? And how can it help?
First, let’s discuss some of the biggest challenges in the healthcare sector.
Healthcare pain-points
Cost
Unsurprisingly, the hardest-hitting characteristic in healthcare is its cost. From expenses to patient charges, healthcare has only grown more expensive over the years with no signs of changing. Patients in the United States are commonly hemorrhaged by medical debt, unable to afford the immense costs associated with emergency events – or even general preventative care. Insurance has also risen in price, giving Americans even fewer options for routine checkups or specialist visits.
How does Dragon Medical One help?
While the Dragon Medical One dictation software doesn’t quite have the innate ability to resolve the healthcare cost crisis, it can provide medical practices and organizations a tool to better assist their patients.
Making the most of time, Dragon Medical One (DMO) gives users an edge to provide effective, agile care by cutting medical record processing times down to a third of the typical time, giving doctors more time to focus on patient health and provide faster, accurate treatment. This prevents extra, potentially unnecessary follow-up visits, and saves on costs.
Inequitable Healthcare
Though the healthcare system is meant to be one without prejudice, healthcare inequity is another problem in the medical industry. Social inequities are systemic and impact factors like race, identity, age, and location.
The problem expands beyond treatment access. Those affected by social inequalities have fewer opportunities for jobs, housing, food, and education. These factors can impact how they receive healthcare (such as getting medical insurance or seeking preventative care). Addressing said systemic issues mean directly altering the factors causing inequality at the local, state, and federal level – certainly a task easier said than done.
How does Dragon Medical One help?
Accurate dictation means you can identify all the factors in a patient’s treatment path and help assess the best possible medicine and operations. That includes details of inequity or systemic misalignment.
Data-Centric Services and Legacy Infrastructure
As we’ve talked about before, the expansion of technology in the healthcare industry can’t be denied. Virtualized tools, electronic health records, and wearables are a few examples of expanding tech healthcare professionals can readily use.
The problem, however, is this tech must be secured within a healthcare network, something the medical sector struggles with. Any device or service with internet-facing capabilities is a point of potential intrusion for attackers. Furthermore, the healthcare sector sees high saturation of third-party attacks such as ransomware, meaning there’s a greater need to secure IT architecture.
There are also the challenges of data management. Vast quantities of data are generated with each patient, requiring proper safeguards and monitoring. Administrative data is also a factor, from demographics to insurance information to billing. Legacy infrastructure and staff limitations however can make data management harder in the long term.
How does Dragon Medical One help?
As an industry-leading dictation software, DMO aids the record-keeping process by saving time and money. The HIPAA-compliant software platform works seamlessly with electronic health record systems, instantly transcribing spoken dictation. This process eliminates the need for scribes or transcriptions. Therefore, there are no recordings of patient data to be stolen, leaked, or unintentionally used.
Due to the industry-leading accuracy, the encounter record is accurate. Management of said healthcare data is easier since it will not need remediation, corrections, or returns. This in turn is an immense asset to administrator operations.
Healthcare Provider Shortages
The COVID pandemic exacerbated the provider shortages patients and medical professionals face in the healthcare industry. But even before the pandemic, there were problems. Reduced staff onboarded (such as nurses and specialists) means patients have fewer options for accessible healthcare. Geographic limitations, such as rural areas, also need consideration.
How does Dragon Medical One help?
While Dragon Medical One is not a direct replacement for expert clinicians, it is a powerful, accessible dictation platform making the medical record process easier and faster. Clinics no longer need to rely on scribes or expensive third-party transcriptionists.
In environments where medical staff is lacking, any tool that can save time and expedite otherwise redundant processes is a huge benefit. DMO can also help reduce physician burnout and stress caused by lingering medical staff shortages.
Conclusion
There are no easy fixes to the immense pressures in the healthcare industry. If we truly want it to change for the better, serious shifts must occur at the federal level with better budget considerations, increased benefits for workers, and immensely reduced costs for patients seeking any form of care.
These are the primary pain points in healthcare today, but they can be alleviated by using technology and tools such as Dragon Medical One dictation software.
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