Admission Monitoring System (AMS)

In many hospitals, be it in private or public, patient admission is one of the most critical and crucial process that need to be properly managed and taken care of. Apart from the hospital ambiance and physical layout, admission process is normally where patients give their first impressions of the hospital. In most cases, if the patients are getting good service during their admission process, the tendency for them to make ‘noises’ during their inpatient stay is less. In contrast, if the patients encountered bad service during their admission process, the subsequentinpatient services may seems to be unsatisfactory to them due to the negative impression during their first contact point.

Admission process is often associated with long waiting time. The main reasons for the long waiting time for admission includesunavailable bed or fully occupied bed, poor communication among ward staff and admission clerk and also pending approval for Guarantee Letter (GL). Of course, being in poor health condition, people will not tolerate if they have to wait for hours to get admitted. In view to that, KPJ Selangor Specialist Hospital has taken a step forward in making sure the admission process is in the highest state of excellence which will eliminate the hassles that their patients have to encounter during that process. This is where the idea of developing a good system comes in.

With the expertise of its in-house IT personnel, a system called Admission Monitoring System (AMS) was developed. This system is mainly developed with the purpose of making the admission process more efficient; reduce miscommunication among ward staff and admission clerk; and also keeping track of the patients’ GL approval status. This system was developed in 2012 and it has won the Gold Award in KPJ Innovative and Creative Circle (ICC) Convention as well as the National Team Excellence Convention which was organized by Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC).

Admission Monitoring System (AMS) is an on-line patient registration system whereby it keep track from the point the patient was registered as in-patient until the patient get into their room. AMS provides the information to the admission staff about the status of patient’s registration issues such as GL approval, deposit and room availability. Meanwhile, ward staff can know the status of patients that will be admitted into their ward and they will make necessary preparation even before the patient walk into the ward.

AMS Login Page

AMS Dashboard

            My Ward Dashboard displays patients’ particulars that have been keyed in such as name, MRN, deposit, room status and so on. By viewing at the AMS Dashboard, staff at Admission Counter and ward staff will know the patients’ status and will take necessary actions.

“Manage Bed” Menu

           

Before admission staff key in Bed Details into the “Manage Beds” menu, they will first check the availability of bed through Bed Management System (BMS). From the BMS, they can see which bed is vacant and will suggest to the patient according to their entitlement. After the patient choose their desired room, the admission staff will then key in the bed and room details into the AMS “Manage Bed” menu.

 Details of room that has been entered will be displayed on AMS “Dashboard”. Staff will then enter the admission particulars such as patient’s name, MRN and time. Admission staff will check with ward staff the room status whether it is ready, pending of patient discharge or pending of housekeeping. The admission staff will then update the room status into the AMS “Dashboard”.

AMS Dashboard

  

            For patients that are covered under insurance or using company’s Guarantee Letter (GL), the admission staff needs to update the GL status into the AMS “Dashboard” whether their GL is received, pending, required further info or denied. In most cases, GL that is denied will not be proceed for admission unless the patient is willing to pay cash deposit. For patient that has pending GL status, the Admission staff will follow up with the insurance company in order to fasten the approval process.

             For cash-paying patient, the Admission staff will update their deposit status whether it has been paid sufficiently, insufficient or no deposit paid. Normally cash-paying patients are required to pay the full deposit before they are allowed to be admitted. However, there are some emergency cases whereby patients will be allowed to be admitted even though their deposit is insufficient.

AMS on Digital Screen

Patient Admission List

Patients’ particulars that have been entered into the AMS will be summarized into “Patient Admission List” and will be displayed on the digital screens. These digital screens were placed at Admission Counter and all wards for staff reference and further action. On the “Patient Admission List”, staff can view the time of registration, patient’s name, MRN and room number. Apart from that, they can also view the status of room, patient’s GL and deposit. For room status, green indicates that the room is ready, yellows indicates that it is pending whether for housekeeping or patient discharge and red indicates that the room is not available. Based on these indicators, staff will do the necessary actions in order to get the patient admitted as soon as possible.

For GL status, the same indicators are also being used whereby green indicates that the GL has been received, yellow indicates that it is still pending or required further information and red indicates that the patient’s GL is denied. Same goes to the deposit status, it indicates that the deposit is sufficient, insufficient and no deposit received based on the same colour coding.

From this “Patient Admission List”, staff at Admission Counter and ward staff will know the admission status of each patient and they can know the root cause if there is any delay in admission cases. From that point, they can work on to find the best solution to fasten the admission process.