A Clinic today: PC less and less than ideal!

Often I have written about how a PC will help you manage your clinic better, focusing on what would go right is you did have a PC and software to help you manage your affairs. Maybe it’s time to look at this from the other end of the tunnel. What could go wrong if I didn’t have the PC or software! So now consider my clinic Dr. Aditya’s Specialty Clinic, let’s say its specialty is Skin treatments. And to add to this lets say I have no PC in the clinic or even an inkling of technology. Let’s see how it works?

Patient Amit Jain has an intense skin allergy and is looking for a dermatologist in his area. So he searches online for a dermatologist near his house. Dr. Aditya Speciality Clinic is just two lanes down, sadly since he does not have a website or a web presence his name doesn’t figure in the searches despite being clinically better and also closest to the potential client. Well luckily, Amit walking to the bus stop happens to see the clinic and decides to try it first. Leaving your clinic’s walk-ins to luck isn’t the best idea!

Amit now walks up to the reception and asks for an appointment. The receptionist stumbles through her diary to find the correct time slot. Finally after 5 minutes of page turning she settles for tomorrow at 5pm and notes it in her diary. Amit gets no confirmation but a confirmatory nod.

Next day at 4.30pm Dr. Aditya takes in a patient named Amrita Khanna. He had diagnosed her condition and also prescribed her a treatment of tablets and cream for the rash. Now, Amrita has forgotten her paper, also Dr. Aditya having seen over 450 patients since then cannot remember the extent of the rash as opposed to now! So, Dr. Aditya being stressed yells at Amrita, who is left confused. But being a good doctor, he manages to make the correct decision and through experience guesses the prescription. He writes down on a new piece of paper and gives it to Amrita. Amrita goes out and pays the receptionist who nonchalantly charges her Rs 200 instead of Rs 100 and pockets Rs 100 without anyone realizing.

Amit now arrives for his appointment unsure whether it was 4.45pm or 5.00pm, he is ushered in and made to sit in front of the doctor. The doctor quickly hears his complaint and takes down his history on a piece of paper, Amit discusses his problem and Dr. Aditya prescribes him the required tablets and cream. He asks Amit to come again in 3 days at the same time.

At the same time Amrita takes the prescription to the nearby chemist who misinterprets the dosage and gives a stronger medication. This caused Amrita to have a major side effect which was only detected much later.

Amit takes his medication as mentioned, after 3 days he arrives for his next appointment, but since it was not entered in the diary by the receptionist he is made to wait for 2 hours. When his turn comes, Dr. Aditya asks for the entire history again before deciding what to do next, another 30 minutes gone. He gives an injection from his inventory to Amit. This entry is not noted anywhere as it was done in house. Dr. Aditya was surprised to see that only 3 injections were remaining, little did he know his office boy had been selling 20% of his stock behind his back every month during the days of heavy rush to make some money on the side. Amit either ways get cured and his happy, but he still wishes if received a better case paper, more complete details about his illness and the prescription, the doctor had a record of the case paper with him, some kind of reminder for the appointment to make it better for him.

Dr. Aditya is despite being a great clinician knows he can do better if he had all the patient details with him the first time he took their history and subsequent visit wise information. If he had a better appointment system to manage his schedule he would be able to create time for other activities. He knows money and inventory is getting lost in his messy workplace, he needs to get on top of it. The best and quickest solution for this is a simple PC and good software which helps you track your patient records, accounts and inventory.

And if he knew, he would also pray that his prescriptions don’t get misinterpreted, and cause his patients trouble. So a legible prescription pad which can be integrated with the software would seem ideal. And how about if he could store before and after images and help treat his patients better! Hmm, some things to think about in the Technology Zone….. All the above features provided by Clinkare from Plus91 Technologies.