Three Ways to Improve Your Small Healthcare Practice with Technology

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Healthcare providers of all sizes face the same challenges: to maintain efficient operations on a limited budget and improve the quality of patient care. To address these challenges, providers must be able to do more with less. In today’s competitive and constantly changing healthcare environment, HP is proud to deliver the technology innovation that organizations need to become more efficient, reduce costs and support process improvements. For small healthcare practices, community hospitals and clinics, leveraging a few key technology solutions from HP Healthcare and its partners can go a long way toward conquering those challenges:

HP’s EHReady to complete the transition to electronic health records. Electronic health records are some of the most promising benefits of the information age. Just as online banking allows standardized and efficient access to information on a customer’s financial accounts, an EHR provides access to a patient's medical history, offering potentially life-saving information to emergency room doctors treating an unfamiliar patient in crisis. The HP EHReady Program, enabled by Intel technology, provides end-to-end EHR solutions that enable doctors to meet the meaningful use objectives under the American Recovery and Reinvestment (ARRA) HITECH Act.  

Telemedicine Carts for remote patient care. HP recently partnered with GlobalMed to introduce new telemedicine solutions that will help doctors provide care to patients in remote locations. The GlobalMed Telemedicine Cart powered by HP benefits practices by preventing patients from having to go into big cities every time they need advice from a specialist. Instead, patients can go to a local clinic or small practice and connect with a remote physician or specialist. Mobile technologies like the telemedicine carts from GlobalMed and HP are ultimately providing better overall quality care by bringing the face-to-face interactions with a doctor or specialist to every patient, regardless of where they are.

Tablet computing at the point-of-care. Healthcare professionals use tablet PCs to be more efficient and accurate in their day-to-day activities to access medical records remotely, ultimately improving face-to-face interactions with patients by providing them with personalized healthcare information in real-time. The HP Slate 2 is an example of a tool doctors can use to capture patient information digitally, so details are not lost or overlooked. HP Windows-based tablet PCs are an excellent choice for practices that want to streamline processes while being able to run the same programs as on a desktop PC.  

Now more than ever it is important for doctors and healthcare providers to adjust their everyday routines to implement advancements in medical technology, starting with the integration of electronic health records and continuing to the fully-digitized workspace. As more doctors embrace these new technologies, we all stand to benefit.

Editor’s note: HP is now the preferred provider of technology products for the American Medical Association. Are you a member? Take advantage of your HP-AMA member perks or join AMA today so you too can take part!