*By Juliana Gomes
It is evident that the pandemic has had many impacts on health institutions in Brazil. The main objective of any hospital is, through the management, control and humanization of care, to offer quality services and results to patients. However, with the pandemic, many hospital managers, both public and private, had to deal with the challenges posed by the operating costs needed to keep hospitals supplied. But, how to maintain the high level of quality of care in the midst of this adverse scenario?
After an analysis of the variability of care carried out in 468 hospitals, the Advisory Board organization was able to conclude that, by delivering care in line with the best practices of high quality hospitals, an institution with revenues of US$ 1 billion can save approximately US$29 million/ year. In this context, the variability of care becomes a major bottleneck when it comes to spending on health.
act on clinical variability has great weight in cost management. It is necessary to start working on this issue first by evaluating the decisions that the physician/care teams are making on a daily basis, as well as analyzing the involvement of patients. If the hospital takes these two ongoing factors into account, we can start activities with the objective of increasingly adjusting operations and promoting discussions on how to optimize them.
The key to dealing with medical variances is standardization, as standardized care impacts better patient outcomes, bringing fewer complications, lower hospital readmission rates, better performance, and quality-based metrics that are tied to reimbursement. As such, it is imperative that providers apply their research-based knowledge and evidence-based medicine.
Technology and high quality of care
To promote a high level of quality of care in hospitals, the use of technology is extremely important to control adequate processes that result in better care. The digital and certified hospital uses technologies to support clinical decisions that promote agility in the process and monitoring of the operation, an important indicator for cost management. Allied to this, we still need to think about the patient's journey and directing efforts to obtain a line of care. This means trying to understand what value we are delivering to the patient. We need to optimize processes, computerization and electronic records. For this, it is necessary to rely on technologies.
Challenges for public and private hospitals in Brazil
We know that there are many difficulties in hospitals in the public and private sectors. When we talk about management, in general, there is a main tripod that involves people, processes and technologies. Health is a segment that is labor intensive, and to minimize these costs, it is essential to invest in optimized processes and technological resources.
The lack of investment is a great difficulty for public institutions, that is, investing in technology outside the electronic patient record is still a great challenge. In this case, it is necessary to focus on process improvement and deliver value to promote patient safety and quality of care. These processes minimize rework and optimize time.
The need of managers is related to the technology of systems that have interoperability, in addition to the discussion on innovation in the health area and investments in resources for clinical decision support. It is necessary to provide a line of care covering the pre, during and after care, in order to effectively guarantee care that considers the patient as a whole. Embarking on technology is, yes, a matter of health.
*Juliana Gomes is new business and project leader at Wolters Kluwer, Health in Brazil
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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