4 top uses of electronic signature software’s in hospitals

Introduction 

With Certinal, hospitals can now utilize digital signatures for the most important documents that require signatures from all parties involved. Certinal provides a secure and efficient way for hospitals to digitally sign off on requests and documents, streamlining the process for everyone involved. Not only does this save time, but it also ensures that all documents are legally binding, protecting all parties from potential disputes.  

Have you ever taken a moment to admire the efficiency of a hospital as you walked around? Patients are given strategic and expert treatment around-the-clock thanks to doctors and nurses collaborating, administrators managing hundreds of incoming and outgoing patient data, and doctors and nurses. 

Benefits for Hospitals 

The benefits of Certinal are numerous when it comes to hospitals. It eliminates manual paperwork and processes, which can be error-prone and time-consuming. Certinal also securely stores documents, with digital signatures providing added protection against fraud or tampering. By using Certinal, hospitals are able to access documents instantly, freeing up their staff to focus on more important tasks such as patient care.  

The HITECH Act: What Is It? 

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 was created to promote the use of electronic health records, or EHRs. Under this act, hospitals receive incentives from the government if they adopt certified EHR software.  

The percentage of hospitals utilizing electronic health record (EHR) systems has increased from 10% to 96% since the implementation of HITECH. This is a noteworthy and significant shift since it will benefit hospitals, vendors, medical personnel, and patients in the following ways:  

• Improved patient data organization 
• More encryptable personal health data 
• Quicker cooperation and communication 
• more effectively planned and vetted processes and care 
• better availability of medical history 
• easier HIPAA compliance 

Digital Signatures and HIPPA Compliance 

Certinal is also a valuable tool when it comes to HIPAA compliance. Digital signatures can easily be audited and tracked, which gives hospitals an easy way to prove that their documents have been signed off by the appropriate parties. Certinal helps hospitals ensure that all patient data is protected and secure, as well as ensuring that privacy policies are quickly provided to patients and properly approved.  

Electronic signatures are employed in many different contexts during a typical hospital day. Here are some of the most typical applications for e-signatures in hospitals that support critical medical procedures for both staff and patients. 

Charting:

Charting patients’ medical histories, complaints, observations, and other information that is important to their care is a critical function in hospitals. Doctors, physicians assistants, nurses, physical therapists, and patients frequently need to sign off on chart notes. Electronic signatures make it simple to complete this crucial process from the patient’s bedside or from anyplace else in the hospital. 

Prescriptions:

Thanks to electronic signatures, doctors and nurses can quickly write out crucial prescriptions while traveling or seeing patients. Patient care during hospitalization is now made easier thanks to digital RXs and electronic signatures. 

Medical Billing:

By incorporating electronic signatures into medical billing software, billing professionals may sign contracts, bill patients and insurance providers, collect money, and issue receipts more quickly than ever. 

Procedure Approvals:

Time is frequently of the essence in hospitals. The quick and simple approval of urgent and required patient procedures by patients, their families, and doctors is made possible in large part by electronic signatures. 

Pharmacy Transactions:

By integrating electronic signatures into their systems, pharmacists can guarantee prompt vendor deliveries and track the distribution of medications. With just a few clicks, pharmacists may use digital signatures to trace pharmaceuticals from order to dispensation. 

Vendor Scheduling and Payment:

Keeping hospitals operating efficiently requires a lot of work. It’s crucial to guarantee efficient vendor orders and deliveries. Hospital administrators can ensure that PPE, food, medication, medical gadgets, cleaning supplies, and other supplies are delivered regularly and on time by using electronic signatures and digital ordering. 

Patient Privacy Notices:

According to HIPAA regulations, patient privacy notices must be immediately given, signed at the time of service, and maintained on file with the patient’s medical records for at least seven years (often as long as ten years for Medicare). Healthcare professionals can now avoid lengthy paperwork wait times and deliver patient treatment more quickly thanks to the digitization of this process. 

Audits:

Every hospital employee and healthcare professional is aware of the dreaded audit. While not enjoyable, the auditing process can go much more smoothly when medical data and their associated histories are available to auditors. It’s crucial that auditors can follow the chain of ownership and possession during the auditing process. Fortunately, digital signatures make it simple to prove who, when, and where each document was signed. 

Certinal was created to make electronic signature processes in hospitals simple, quick, and compliance-friendly.  

Correct Electronic Signature Use in a Medical Environment 

Electronic signatures must be utilized consciously, correctly, and explicitly, much like most medical processes. Guidelines for using e-signature technology in medical settings must be properly adhered to in order to prevent liability issues and mistakes. 

It is possible to successfully employ electronic signatures by following the subsequent rules for their application.  

1. Maintain Compliance:

Become familiar with the relevant compliance rules that the hospital and its providers must abide by. What you can and cannot do with medical papers will be governed by the limitations and guidelines set out by ESIGN, UETA, and HIPAA.

2. Manage robust workflows:

As required by the ESIGN, UETA, and HIPAA compliance rules, ensure that terms and consent are clearly stated on digital documents as patients and healthcare professionals sign. Make sure there is a clear signal and agreement to digitally sign the documents, and offer simple navigational instructions for the signing process.

3. Securely Shareable:

Ensure that you can send signed papers to the right individuals via email or direct access logins in a way that is both safe and secure.

4. Add auditability:

It should be possible to follow the signing process from beginning to end, including who signed it when, who viewed it, and where the completed document was transmitted. The prevention of fraud, protection of patient privacy, and streamlining of any offical audits 

Conclusion 

Certinal eSign is designed with crucial components that can assist hospitals in making sure that patient and healthcare provider signing processes are simple and safe. Our specialists will collaborate with you to seamlessly incorporate our unique solution into the systems and procedures you already use because they are knowledgeable about the requirements of hospitals and other healthcare facilities.  

Certinal is a wholly owned subsidiary of Zycus, the pioneer in Cognitive Procurement. A familiar name and market leader with years of experience managing critical contracts & agreements, Zycus boasts of over Fortune 1000 enterprise clients and deployments of procurement and sourcing suite of products. Digital Signing has always been a focus area for Zycus. Thus, Certinal was born to offer a best-in-class Digital Transaction Management solution that will be easy to use, 100% secure to deploy, and legally compliant worldwide. We stand committed to providing a one-stop solution to large enterprise customers, compliant with various security standards and conforming to different regional regulations. Book a demo now!