As a hospital worker responsible for inspections, you know that choosing the right hospital inspection software is crucial. Not only does it help your institution meet regulatory standards, but it also plays a vital role in ensuring patient safety and improving the overall patient experience.
With the right solution, your team can conduct more inspections in less time, gain valuable insights, and even expand its capabilities for auditing, monitoring, and tracking patient safety data.
The right software can also provide hospitals with real-time insight into areas that may need improvement, displaying performance metrics to assess the effectiveness of their operations.
Benefits of Using Hospital Inspection Software
While many hospitals begin to seek out inspection software primarily to help improve operations efficiency, there are a number of major advantages to doing so:
Increased efficiency
Inefficient operations and excessive paperwork waste valuable time and resources. From typing in data or having someone manually review all of the necessary documents and records, hours of labor are wasted on mundane tasks. This leads to unnecessary administrative costs, or sometimes to rushed work that is more likely to cause errors that harm patients.
Hospital inspection software can streamline operations, reduce paperwork, and automate processes, allowing healthcare staff to focus on providing high-quality care. With modern software solutions and mobile apps, inspections become easy and efficient, helping hospitals to maintain high safety and compliance standards in record time. When 3Di deployed inspection software for the Los Angeles Fire Department for instance, they cut their average inspection time by 50 percent.
Improved Quality and Safety Standards
Lack of consistent inspection quality (even with issues as small as overlooking an inspection item or incorrectly copying a handwritten note into a computer) can similarly lead to medical errors and suboptimal care. These lapses can result in negative outcomes for patients, damage a hospital's reputation, and expose it to legal and regulatory risks.
Hospital inspection software helps hospitals monitor and ensure safety standards for everything from infection control and patient care to the maintenance of medical equipment. Even small features like custom checklists help practice more consistent quality inspections, and alerts help identify potential problems, quickly bringing them to the attention of management. This allows for more timely and effective intervention.
Reduced Risk of Regulatory Penalties
Failing to comply with regulations can be a significant burden for hospitals, resulting in costly penalties that harm a hospital's reputation and create additional legal burdens. In some cases, a hospital may even be temporarily or permanently shut down if the non-compliance is deemed to be severe enough.
Hospital inspection software can help hospitals monitor inspection results in real time, with custom alerts to quickly identify and address any issues. This can help hospitals stay compliant with regulations and avoid penalties.
Enhanced Data Analysis Capabilities
Limited ability to analyze data and identify areas for improvement can hinder a hospital's ability to provide high-quality care. Without effective data analysis, hospitals may miss opportunities to improve processes, identify inefficiencies, and provide better care for their patients.
Hospital inspection software can help hospitals collect, organize, and analyze their data, providing insights into potential areas for improvement. With all data in a single place and intuitive visualization tools, hospital leadership can easily monitor trends and performance, helping them to make informed decisions and improve the quality of care.
Factors to Consider When Choosing a Solution
When weighing your options for an inspection software solution, keep these factors in mind.
Cost and Licensing Requirements
Software solutions for hospital inspections can vary widely in cost. Consider not just the initial purchase price, but also any potential additional costs for training or maintenance that may be required down the line. Certain licensing models like per-seat licensing can also cause costs to grow disproportionately for the solution you need.
To reduce costs, consider these tips:
- Choose a software provider using a comprehensive platform, as this provides a foundation that drastically cuts back on development costs and time.
- Choose a cloud-based provider (instead of an on-premise solution), as this eliminates most maintenance costs.
- Look for providers with a non-seat licensing model, so your costs don’t rise based on the number of users you want to have.
- Good software providers will provide ongoing support, so you don’t need to fork over hefty fees each time you want something fixed or questions answered.
- Choose a platform that’s easily extensible, so you can expand on your existing software when you want new features added, instead of buying more software or having new tools built from scratch.
Ease of Use
Poorly designed solutions can lead to increased training costs, low adoption rates, and costly errors due to confusion. Choose something that’s easy for staff to learn and makes their work simpler. If the solution requires initial training, make sure the provider includes ongoing support for any new users that come later.
Reporting and Analytics Capabilities
A key advantage of hospital inspection software is the ability to easily track, analyze and report on inspection data. Look for a provider with advanced analytics capabilities that can help you quickly uncover trends and insights from your data — ideally one with intuitive visualization, rather than a solution that requires technical knowledge or extensive training.
Implementation timeline
Some software solutions can take well over a year to implement. Look for a provider with an implementation timeline that fits within your organization’s needs. This might include having the ability to launch a pilot program, or implementation of the entire solution in phases. To speed up deployment, 3Di uses the 3Di Engage software platform and solution accelerators to quickly build and deploy a customized solution in a matter of weeks.
Customization Options
With most inspection software, you’re stuck with the solution you buy, and that can be somewhat generic (especially if you’re looking to maintain a budget or get started quickly). This makes it difficult to adapt it for your institution’s needs and makes it difficult to add on more features or applications without buying entirely new software.
Customization options should also give users the ability to tailor their personal view of the system, including customizing what data is displayed on reports or dashboards.
Look for providers that not only will create a custom solution for you, but will allow you to easily (and affordably) extend the functionality of your solution whenever you need to.
Compatibility with Existing Systems
Even the best solutions can be more trouble than they’re worth if they don’t “talk” to your existing software. Otherwise, you deal with data silos and redundant work for your team. Look for solutions that can work with as many of your existing systems as possible. For example, 3Di Engage can integrate with virtually any software system a hospital wants (while remaining compliant with HIPAA and other regulations), and builds custom integrations as needed during implementation.
Balancing affordability, customization, and implementation time
Whether you are inspecting fire extinguishers and eyewash stations or performing facility inspections, 3Di Engage helps you quickly complete your entire inspection process with ease. With a web-based platform and robust mobile app, you can improve safety and compliance in a fraction of the time.
An intuitive dashboard allows management to view metrics and reports, making it easier to review compliance issues, thoroughness of inspections, and check helpful numbers like the number of AED inspections completed each month.
To learn more, get a free live demo. We’ll discuss what you’re inspecting and how, and can build a custom solution to suit your unique needs. Since we have a robust inspection solution to build from, you can have your hospital inspection software platform ready in a matter of weeks, without worrying about budget constraints.
