Introduction to Health Care Domain / Industry

The healthcare industry, or medical industry, is a sector that provides goods and services to treat patients with curative, preventive, rehabilitative or palliative care. This industry comprises of different players including hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, clinics, diagnostic laboratories, pharmacies, medical device manufacturers, and other components of the health care system. It is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. It is important to be aware of different business processes/functions involved in this industry before making a career (e.g. software testing practitioner in healthcare) into it. Listed below are the key business functions associated with this industry (Healthcare Providers). Each business functions might have a separate (testing) challenge to solve but that will be discussed later and not in this blog.

How is Testing Different for Healthcare Applications?

Patient Administration System

Patient Registration & Enquiry	Registration of new patients and updation of existing patient details Management of patient details at a centralized location. The details include demographic information of the patient and their medical records. The patient details can be searched by HL7 identifiers (visit number, account number, MRN, EMPI) Advance multi criteria search for already registered patients Recording insurance details
Appointment Scheduling	Booking and scheduling an appointment with physician or lab personnels Cancellation or rescheduling of appointments Searching availability of doctors or consultants for appointments
Admission, Discharge, and Transfer	Search for availability of bed or rooms and allocating it as per the cost associated Final billing and settlement
Accident and Emergency Management	Storing all legal cases related to accident and emergency cases Keeping track of all emergency services provided to patients Storing complete patient information Keeping all medical reports Transfer details
Referral Patient Management	Referring patients to different healthcare organization Recording details of patients being referred

Clinic Management System

Duty Roster	Management of the duty shifts of the employees Appointment scheduling wrt to shift timing of the consultant Management of substitutes in case of absent employee Scheduling overtime
Nursing and Wards Management	Track patient information when shifted from one ward to another ward Bed cleaning request post discharge of patient Allocation of nursing staff and management of their schedule for wards/beds
EMR and Clinical Data Repository	Central repository of all medical records and history of patients Able to store and manage huge amount of clinical records at centralized location Archiving of medical records, handling location tracking, history, and label printing Documenting at patient’s home by caregivers like nurses and syncing with centralized database Clinical coding of medical record

Clinic Management Support System

Operation Theater (OT)	Scheduling the surgery, managing the surgery team, recording the surgery details and maintaining checklist related to surgeries Electronic consent for surgeries from self or relatives Maintains the preoperative and postoperative conditions of the patient Inventory and stock management of the OT
Pathology Laboratory	Receive online requests generated by doctors/staff Sticker printing with bar codes to ensure sample identifications Inventory management Print and generate test reports and bill receipts Search for different test results of different patients Real time communication of test results with different clinics Differentiation of normal and abnormal values of test results Tracks each patient’s laboratory sample and the test results obtained for the same
Radiology & Imaging	Capture images from Radiology machines and store it in the JPG or other standard format and integrate with other clinical workflows Images can be sent in an electronic format
Dietary Services	Assistance to the kitchen in providing meals to inpatient as per the instructions Maintenance of meal scheduling, customizing meals as per patient meals and recording of individual meal orders Captures the calories count and nutritional value of all meals
Blood Bank	Generate report on basis of area, stock-blood group wise or expiry Database of donor and blood groups by area wise Maintain information of all donor types - voluntary, exchanged or directed
Housekeeping, Linen & Laundry	Manage and monitor housekeeping activities in a hospital Housekeeping activities like room preparation, sweeping/mopping floors, dusting furniture, cleaning walls, bathrooms, linens etc. Scheduling the cleaning various areas of a hospital Scheduling change of linen of inpatients Maintaining counting of incoming and outgoing laundry items
Biomedical Waste management	Schedule collection and disposal of Biomedical product Categorization of waste into different types and color codes Radioactive waste disposal management
Transportation management	Keeps track of ambulances available for service Manages transport vehicles services and contract from external vendors Scheduling of vehicles/ambulances and drivers Managing emergency facilities provided in the ambulance

Material Management System

Inventory, Supply, and Procurement	Tracking of each and every item consumed within the healthcare organization Online purchase requests from various stores Receiving quotations and issuing purchase order to various vendors Automatic alert when minimum stock level is reached Alerts for items when near expiry Racking and shelving of the store items
Pharmacy Management	Managing drug distribution, stock management, and monitoring functions Batch number, drug interactions, manufacturing dates, expiry dates are stored properly Provides extensive list of available drugs Alerts generation when stocks reached to minimum level
Centralized Sterile Supply Department (CSSD)	Provide sterile items, equipment to the ward and operation theater Records daily instrumentation, etc. received by various departments for sterilization Classification of instrumentation as per the type of sterilization technique Locating various items in the CSSD Tagging the items with the sterilization date Monitoring the quality of sterilization

Revenue Management System

Patient Billing

Insurance and Contracts Management

Claims Management

Healthcare Packages

Accounting & Finance

Administration Management System

HR / Payroll

Hospital / Clinic Administration

User and Security Administration - scanner, bar codes etc.

Management Information System / Reports Management