Benefits of Medical Device Integration

The increasing use of Information Technologies in the health care industry has made medical device integration necessary for the hospitals and clinics to keep the complete record of the patient on a central Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. It helps in collecting the data of any patient from various devices at one place so that a neutral medical solution provider can use it for providing appropriate treatment to the patient on the basis of the information available on EMR.

According to the studies conducted by CapSite, an advisory firm, and Healthcare Technology Research more than 50% hospitals in US are planning to buy new solutions to integrate their medical devices this year. They have made up their mind for it as the inflow of accurate and faster information about patient, collected from various devices, on the network will enable the clinicians to provide enhanced and safe medical care to the patient.

Benefits of integrating medical devices

Along with business and technical benefits there are several other benefits attached to the medical device integration, discussed briefly here under.

EMR can work to its full potential: The Electronic Medical Report system of the IT department of a hospital or clinic can work at its full potential by integrating its all the medical devices working hard in collecting data about the patient and facing resistance of the users. Integration of medical devices is helping the EMR system of the hospital to be acceptable by the whole establishment by transmitting the data from different devices directly to it. It will also eliminate the need of making manual charts needed by the clinicians in keeping record of the patient as they will get it from the electronic record of the patient. On the other hand if any data remains unattended then integrated devices can help in executing it without affecting the working of EMR system of the hospital.

Reduces time and cost: For IT department of the hospital the integration of medical devices can greatly reduce the time and cost needed for collecting information about the patient from various devices. It enables the EMR system of the hospital to get complete data about any patient by getting plugged in to this centralized process with single and standard interface.

Easy upgrading of the hospital facilities: The seamless transition of the information to the neutral integrated medical device solution of a hospital can help in upgrading the facilities provided by its health information system or medical devices. Hospitals can update their facilities without upgrading the integration of their devices by using EMR vendor or device of their choice for this purpose.

Clinicians get more accurate data automatically: The automation of collecting data from various devices will eliminate the chance of human error and the clinicians will automatically get more accurate information about their patients so that they can make faster decisions about their treatment.

In this way medical device integration is very beneficial for patients as well as hospitals and clinicians as complete information about their medical history, collected from various devices, can be obtained from one point just within few minutes.