SharePoint and Process Optimization in Healthcare

SharePoint is a platform offered by Microsoft that was initially designed as a content management system and was made to be highly configurable. SharePoint syncs up PCs and mobile devices through its back-end system and allows employees within the business to share information in a streamlined fashion.

SharePoint is a powerful enterprise content management tool that provides multiple solutions for information management. Such problems include data loss, redundant processes consuming time, poor communication resulting in ineffective processes, low accountability, low quality and inconsistency in overall performance.

In healthcare, as in other sectors, many business processes can be optimized through an effective and streamlined SharePoint-based application. Healthcare Organizations can leverage features offered by Microsoft’s SharePoint to reduce cost, enhance productivity and streamline processes. The following content will walk you through specific processes in healthcare organizations that could be optimized through SharePoint.
Here at infowise Solutions being a SharePoint-based application developer we see a great many possibilities for implementing a quick, practical and cost-effective solution in the healthcare sector. Currently, healthcare providers make the most extensive section of our new adoptions.

Access to Unit-Specific Information

Frontline staff is especially benefitted through the process optimization and to show this I am going to explain a case of an acute care hospital. Frontline staff needs to access unit-specific information effectively and swiftly as their work demands acuity and adaptability to complexities. Most acute care hospitals who haven’t automated their processes print their clinical resources or post them on walls for the staff to get their quick reference. This is bound to create confusion as information soon gets outdated and has to be upgraded manually; it also creates a visual disturbance. The frontline staff could be effectively assisted through SharePoint so they can share and access the information across their organization. SharePoint could be used to develop unit-corresponding homepages to both satisfy the needs of the staff and will present a collaborative platform to the clinical leadership. Organizations could try out a pilot project and define its processes for them along with its structure and features of the site’ homepages. They could conduct a survey from the staff regarding its utility to ascertain its benefits and shortcomings. This would be an innovative way to access and make available upgraded clinical resources for the betterment of the whole organization.

Onboarding

A poorly structured recruitment process would result in a clutter of paperwork and an ineffective use of time. But if organizations had process optimization measures placed for onboarding then after it has decided upon a suitable profile, they can get them processed and will get them acknowledged with the workings through automated forms, timely approvals, required hardware, accounts, etc. You can ensure seamless onboarding if you could optimize this process through automation.

By automating redundant onboarding tasks and render this automation to trigger the downstream steps. This optimization would have paper documents replaced with digital processes which get appropriate approvals and then stores them for future references. Without having to do anything manually, you would be ensuring authorized users to access information by keeping in mind the compliance with security and privacy regulation.

Through SharePoint, you can get the user management, mailboxes, and directories on one platform for the web-based information system. SharePoint can be used to automatically assign the recruited individual with their computers, communication devices, and software licenses. You can modify this form of optimization to various other processes involved in onboarding.

Workflow Automation

A meticulously crafted Workflow that is powerful and is easy-to-use can enhance the optimization of business processes and will surely get you increasing returns on investment. An optimized workflow will afford the users with the ability to assess, manage, and reuse the workflows across the organization. This optimization could be achieved by automating the workflow and integrated it with other systems and tools; this would fully leverage the functionality of SharePoint. 

It has been widely known that the paper-based processes impede business productivity. When you optimize the workflow through SharePoint, you are looking at much faster and streamlined capital expense approvals. These approvals are ensured after all the corresponding documentation have been received by the stakeholders. Such an optimization assures the data accuracy, and privacy as the patient logs have been digitized. This would also eliminate any error about data input.

Workflow automation would result in easier and quicker fleet management and asset tracking. When healthcare organizations have used SharePoint with third-party assistance, they could enhance their data security, data accuracy, and approval routing and asset management by a great measure.

Care Coordination through Health360

Microsoft has provided solutions to healthcare organizations as regards patient experience and population health management. Their Care Coordination Health360 solution provides segmentation where healthcare organizations can identify the at-risk segments of the population by collecting data from care teams in the health network and by assessing the factors influencing patient outcomes. Then, they start to engage the prospective patients to plan their care in a personalized manner.

After this research, they turn towards care providers to disseminate the best practices and help them create tailored care provisions. This health solution then improves upon outcomes by assessing factors such as the rate of readmissions and health costs of the population thereby working to achieve value-based care goals.

Security risk analysis assessments

To optimize the security risk analysis, you would need an adequate automation tool to do that for you and get you the reports that show you your level of compliance. There is a feature in Microsoft SharePoint that does exactly that. The Advanced Security Management feature helps the healthcare organizations to make sure that their patient’s protected health information is secure.  This feature blocks any sensitive information being uploaded on the web, or it can also be made to alert the end user.

Such a tool would optimize this business process as there would no need for redundancies such as paper trails and complicated spreadsheets when the healthcare organizations go through compliance audits. SharePoint optimizes the compliance process by examining the data for you, along with assessing operations and performance and it will then show you a report through which you can save your organization from breaches and having to pay hefty money as penalties for not abiding by the regulations.

Training and Development

Training and development is another process that could be optimized through the use of SharePoint. As everything has been digitized, the managers will likely be using online resources to conduct their training. They will be assisted in doing so by leveraging many functionalities that SharePoint offers.

SharePoint offers cloud storage that securely centralizes all the documentation ranging from image libraries, databases, patient scheduling, and billing documents. It’s a document management platform. Therefore, it can host all the SOPs and eLearning material. SharePoint resolves the issue of disorganization of training materials by having search features and metadata.

You can also level the training material by controlling its access by defining who gets to access the material and who doesn’t. SharePoint workflows will help the managers to track the progress through training materials and assess the development of the staff. The version control reporting feature would assist the trainers to make sure that the team members are going through the intended information.

Automating business processes through SharePoint can make way for process optimizations, decreasing costs, enhancing efficiency, improving customer experience, and providing a consistent, document-dependent business process.

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At Infowise, we are serving as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavors with our scalable, smart and futuristic tools, software and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation.

Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.