Healthcare with Metanext

Empower healthcare organizations using an open source healthcare ERP

Executive Summary

In this document, we talk about Metanext and how it can be a good fit to run your Healthcare Organization. Healthcare institutions need a lot more than just processes to map all operations digitally. These must also be complemented with good software to have all the critical patient data on one unified platform so that these healthcare institutions don’t have to fret for information. The healthcare module in Metanext contains features that are specific to the industry. They will help in improving efficient delivery, data transparency, and smoother operations for the healthcare institute. Along with core ERP features like Financial Accounting and Inventory management, we will explore how Metanext can be used as an “All-in-one” Healthcare solution.

Introduction

Metanext is suited to cover a large section of healthcare institutes from a full-service facility that includes pharmacy, in-patient, and out-patient services, laboratory, rehab, and physiotherapy services with a number of healthcare workers, to a small clinic providing consultation or physiotherapy services.

1. Types of Healthcare Facilities

There are various types of healthcare facilities that need to manage their operations digitally.

1.1 Clinics and Medical Offices

A clinic is a facility for the diagnosis and treatment of outpatients. Many patients visit clinics for regular appointments and checkups. Clinics can provide any kind of services like veterinary, dental, ​osteopathic, etc. ​These healthcare facilities can be a physician’s private practice, a group practice setting, or a corporately owned clinic that might be connected to a larger healthcare system of the hospital.

1.2 Hospitals

Hospitals are the ultimate “catch-all” facilities. Their services can vary greatly depending on size, location, and complexity. They have not just one but several Healthcare Service Units for different operations. ​Most hospitals have in-patient facilities, requiring patients to stay under the supervision of specialized healthcare professionals until discharge.

1.3 Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Centres

Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Centres deal in everything from athletic injuries to therapies for patients with disabilities. ​There are also rehabilitation centers where patients can receive various therapies to help restore their abilities after an illness or injury. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy are all processes that help people gain or regain skills they need to move around, work, or speak in their everyday life.

1.4 Pharmacies

Pharmacies are now actively participating in medical care, by preparing medicines for out-patients. Also, pharmacists play an integral role in the collaborative approach to the health care of home care patients by promoting the proper use of medicines. Hospital Pharmacies also maintain stocks for medical equipment and consumables like syringes, injection doses, etc.

1.5 Laboratory Centres

A medical or clinical laboratory is a ​laboratory​ where ​clinical pathology ​ tests are carried out on clinical specimens to obtain information about the ​health​ of a ​patient​ to aid in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases. More comprehensive services can be found in acute-care hospitals and medical centers, where 70% of clinical decisions are based on laboratory testing.

2. Benefits

Metanext can help healthcare organizations streamline their activities by offering the following benefits:

2.1 Single source of truth

Not every region in the world has access to good healthcare. In many areas, the healthcare industry is not up to date with technology in its operations and still heavily relies on manual record-keeping practices for administrative work. A Healthcare facility also needs to manage a number of other operations apart from healthcare and might use different software or formats to maintain all of them.

1.    Accounting

2.    Asset Management 3. HRMS and Payroll

4.     Stock Management

5.     Sales

6.     Purchase

7.     CRM

8.     Project Management

9.     Education Software (for Medical Universities)

10.Integrations

Administration becomes painful with the problem of investing separately on each software and all the departments fail to run in harmony. Managing all these operations on a unified platform ensures a single source of truth for building an insightful database. ​What if a single software provides you with all of this at no extra cost?​ You have not wasted your time reading till here then!

2.2 Improved Efficiency

Maintaining data using a traditional system hinders the filtering, searching, and querying capabilities, not to miss the speed of capturing data that software can provide. Systematic collection, storage, and analysis of large volumes of medical datasets can make medication an error-free process. 

When data is maintained in spreadsheets or files, manually sharing it becomes very tedious. Features like auto email reports, SMS alerts, email integration, data importing, exporting to the desired format, webhooks for API access, automatic notifications can make life easier for healthcare administrators.

Figure 1: Searching, filtering, and sharing capabilities of Metanext

2.3 Improved Decision Making

Most of the hospital database has become a repository of incomplete or incorrect details due to lack of proper maintenance. This is because healthcare practitioners don’t have direct access to the medical history of patients or the patient’s progress reports. The treatment process is slowed down when there are no systems in place to record and access the patient’s data. Patient History, Patient Progress, and Patient Repository in Metanext can help you gain faster access to insightful information for improved decision making.

Figure 2: Hassle of maintaining medical data on sheets

2.4 Better Analysis

Several data conventions in healthcare hinder the widespread adoption of data visualization. When the healthcare data is split among different entities and has different formats, building an insightful database is next to impossible. 

With healthcare dashboards and powerful reports in Metanext, you can not only analyze healthcare KPIs like appointment analytics, in-patient department status, percentage distribution of lab tests, clinical procedures, being conducted but also analyze important business KPIs via profit and loss statements, accounts receivable and payable reports, attendance and timesheet reports, asset lifecycle and more.

2.5 Reduced Cost

The cost crisis in healthcare is not new. There are many stakeholders who play a key role in determining the cost of healthcare services, ranging from device manufacturers to medical drug manufacturing companies and payers to insurance policy providers.

Conflict is natural when so many stakeholders are involved. And developing a consensus requires strategic planning and time. One place where you can save your costs is by using open source software. With a wide range of modules at no extra licensing costs, you can manage all of your operations in one unified platform.

3. Healthcare with Metanext

The healthcare module in Metanext empowers any Healthcare facility to overcome all the challenges mentioned above. It helps you manage patients, appointments, consultations, laboratory, pharmacy, rehabilitation, and much more. ​Metanext has a comprehensive set of modules out of the box. Along with the features for Healthcare, you can also track your accounting books, manage appraisals, payroll, leaves, organize your inventory, manage purchases, expenses, and much more!

3.1 An Overview of Features

3.1.1 Patient Management

Healthcare practitioners should be able to record patient registrations faster, whilst ensuring that the quality of their services isn’t affected. Metanext allows you to add patients by filling just a few fields.

3.1.2 Healthcare Practitioner and Schedule Management

Healthcare Practitioners are the doctors, nurses, ward boys, lab technicians, etc. who are serving the hospital unit in one way or another. Metanext Healthcare allows you to create multiple practitioners and link to a User with appropriate Roles. You can also link a Healthcare Practitioner to an ​Employee to track Payroll, Attendance, or other Human Resource Management activities.

3.1.3 Medical Code Standards

Medical Coding is required in many countries for regulatory compliance and many of the Medical Insurance companies manage eligibility and coverage based on Medical Code Standards. Metanext Healthcare helps encode diagnosis and assessments recorded as part of Patient Encounters. You can also codify Clinical Procedures.

3.1.4 Healthcare Service Units

Metanext Healthcare helps you map your Facility Infrastructure and manage

Appointment Scheduling, Billing, etc by creating Healthcare Service Units. These are made available for Appointment Booking or Inpatient Occupancy and also for Billing.

Figure 3: Healthcare Service Unit Tree

3.1.5 Appointment Scheduling

Metanext Healthcare allows you to book Patient Appointments for any date and alert patients via Email or SMS. You can easily organize appointments for each Practitioner based on their availability schedules.

3.1.6 ​Patient Encounters

Metanext Healthcare allows you to record every encounter with patients through the Patient Encounter document. It helps you capture complaints, diagnoses, and also prescribe lab, clinical or therapy orders from a single document. You can also create a Patient Encounter based on a previously booked Appointment.

3.1.7 Clinical Procedures

Metanext helps you create and map Clinical Procedures for patients like Wound Cleaning or a Cataract Surgery. The system allows you to preconfigure ​Clinical Procedure Templates​, so that you do not have to set the default properties like the consumables, rates, items every time you conduct a Clinical Procedure.

3.1.8 Capturing Vital Signs

Metanext Healthcare helps you to capture the Vital Signs of Patients at any point in the treatment process. All vitals information over time can be viewed as part of the Patient History.

3.1.9 Billing and Prescriptions

Invoice your patients with clutter-free, customizable print formats. You can also automate your daily operations like invoicing appointments, sending Email / SMS reminders for registration, appointments, and lab test results. Automating​ these mundane tasks with a system like Metanext leaves you with more time to invest in the work that actually needs your attention.

Figure 6: Beautiful Print Format

3.1.10 Patient History

Maintenance of accurate and complete medical records of patients is one of the rudiments for healthcare practitioners and providers. Over and above, the ease at which the information is accessible by a practitioner is critical in rendering effective, high-quality care. Metanext Healthcare helps you to draw up the medical history of a Patient anytime by quickly searching and selecting the Patient.

Figure 7: Patient History

3.2 Advanced Features

3.2.1 Laboratory Management

Metanext Healthcare also allows the creation of Lab Tests automatically when they are billed (via Sales Invoice). This along with other Laboratory configurations can be set up in Healthcare Settings. When the results are prepared, you can enter the details of the results in the Lab Test document. All presets, Normal Values etc. as configured in the Lab Test Template are made available Lab Test for easy data capture. Another critical aspect for a Laboratory is managing collected samples and requiring to ID the sample, print stickers, etc. This can also be handled in Metanext.

Figure 8: Lab Test Template

3.2.2. Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation

Metanext Healthcare can also assist you in maintaining all Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation patient records. You can create records for the types of exercises​ and ​therapies​ prescribed by your physiotherapists. You can then create ​therapy plans​ and track a patient’s ​therapy sessions​ along with handling invoicing for these sessions. You can also ​assess​ your patient’s progress through Metanext Healthcare. All these features lead to a robust module for practices offering physiotherapy.

3.2.3 Automation

There are several features you can automate via Healthcare Settings. A few of these are autogeneration of invoices when an appointment is booked, fee management automation, and auto-sending of SMS alerts to patients for when their appointment booking has been confirmed and when the results of their lab tests are ready.

3.2.4 Fee Validity

Many healthcare facilities do not charge for follow up consultations within a time period after the first visit. You can configure the number of free follow-ups allowed as well as the time period for free consultations in Healthcare Settings. This will create a Fee Validity document and will be updated with every appointment.

3.2.5 Prescription and Procedure Templates

Metanext lets you ​accelerate administration ​by managing your laboratory, clinical procedure, and physiotherapy operations using templates. With templates, you don’t have to waste your valuable time filling redundant data every single time.

3.2.6 Pharmacy Management

Set yourself free from the hassle of managing the inventory and warehouses for your pharmacy on paper and excel sheets. Reduce your paper and ink costs significantly by tracking your inventory in Metanext using ​powerful features ​like Quick Stock Balance and Stock Ageing Reports. You can also make stock transfers, process billing, and payments. Barcode scanning helps you keep track of and search for the exact drug you are looking for. 

3.2.7 HRMS and Payroll

Apart from providing efficient healthcare services for patients, the healthcare module also addresses the thriving need of managing operations of the healthcare practitioners on the field. The gradually increasing need for a workforce has inspired several retired healthcare practitioners and medical students to step up and assist. With Metanext, you can manage the payroll, attendance, shifts, leaves, and more for your entire medical staff.

3.2.8 Accounting

Right from recording transactions to summarizing these records to ​analyzing financial reports​, Metanext has got your back. You can also automate appointment invoicing, manage multi-currency accounting, and track revenue according to medical departments with the help of cost centers.

3.2.9 Asset Management

The Asset module in Metanext helps you manage the entire lifecycle of the lifesaving healthcare equipment and machines using mechanisms for ​asset maintenance​, movement, depreciation, selling, purchase, and value adjustment.

3.2.10 Serialized and Batched Inventory

You can assign a unique value like a serial number to each unit of an item. This can help track its movement in transactions as well as monitor its warranty and expiry information. Serial numbers are useful to track ​warranty​.

You can group multiple units of an item and assign these groups with a number called Batch Number. Batches can be split or moved within warehouses. All stock transactions are then tagged with this batch number to enable you to track it in transactions as well as monitoring expiry and quality.

3.3 Analytics

Analytics​ plays an important role in making data-driven decisions. Metanext provides you with pre-built reports like Patient Appointment Analytics, Patient History, Lab Test Reports, and more. Apart from that, you can switch to the report view of any document, export them to different formats in just a few clicks. You can also create custom reports and dashboards on the fly, right from the user interface. Metanext is built upon the low-code Metanext Framework that empowers you to build customizations in order to get the reports that you need.

3.4 Customization

If you need more than the existing features, you can create your own version of the healthcare module in Metanext. Create new forms, scripts, fields, and workflows all with minimal or no coding required. Moreover, if your healthcare facility requires some core feature changes, you can get in touch with the

Metanext team, once you’re in business with us! 

3.5 Why Open Source

With the flexibility that an open source software provides backed up by a community that will support you, there will never be a struggle for solutions. Doctors collaborate with one another since collaboration often leads to better solutions. The same is true for Open Source Software.

4. Customer Talk

“It was a struggle to find a good software solution to manage our 100+ bed multi-specialty hospital. That’s when I got introduced to Metanext Healthcare. In no time, the usability and the close integration with the features of a full-fledged ERP really impressed us all. 

Being open-source, we could host Metanext in-house with the help of a service provider. We started off with OP, Laboratory, Pharmacy, and are in the process of moving every other department onto Metanext. Eagerly waiting for upcoming updates!”

Dr. Mohammed Issak Omar, MBBS

Consulting Physician and General Manager SSSH, Mogadishu, Somalia www.ssshospital.so

“We are one of the leading EMR solution providers in the middle east. We get a lot of inquiries from our clients for solutions to manage HR, Accounting, etc., and we almost always recommend Metanext. 

I see that the vision ‘ERP for Everyone’ as the prime reason healthcare module contribution is now available in Metanext. This, I’m sure, will enable Healthcare Institutions across the world to utilize the many useful features of Metanext as well. 

I’m following Metanext from afar - hats off to you guys at Metanext for the awesome work!”

Dr. Ahmad Al Najjar, Ph.D. CSSBB

Health Informatics Director Sehacloud LLC, Saudi Arabia www.sehacloud.com “Metanext for Healthcare is user friendly and well-streamlined with some clean workflows easily recognizable by healthcare professionals. Open source and backed by a strong community, this indeed is a very promising and well-structured solution ready for implementation. 

I’m glad I could share some of my domain knowledge to the developers. I wish the Metanext team and community all the best!”

Dr. Bholah Amal, MBBS

Founder & CEO

Smart Health Limited, Mauritius www.smarthealth.mu

“We operate a chain of Ayurveda rejuvenation clinics in Goa, and our international customers book appointments in advance for every season. It has been real chaos managing thousands of appointments and assigning therapists. 

With Metanext Healthcare we are now powered to manage any number of consultations as well as therapy/yoga appointments! Managing Stock at each clinic and Billing is already a big plus for us, we are now exploring other features like leaves, payroll, etc. 

Thanks to Metanext, I’m now confident we can now think of growing the number of our clinics without worry!”

Dr. Rohit R. Borcar, BAMS

Ayurveda Goa, ​www.ayurvedagoa.org

Conclusion

Credits

The Healthcare domain in Metanext is a community-contributed module initiated by ​Earthians​ which was further enhanced and now maintained by Metanext. 

This document is based on experience by the team at Metanext Technologies which has performed and overseen over 850 Metanext implementations across the span of 10 years. We would like to acknowledge the hundreds of companies that chose Metanext to kickstart their Metanext implementation.