Unlock the Benefits of Policy Management Software for Your Organization

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Are your organization’s policies and procedures easy to find? Do you dread policy review meetings? The benefits of policy management software include efficient and effective ways to manage the policy life cycle throughout your organization, helping to ensure that all policies are up-to-date, consistent, and compliant with regulations.

 

As healthcare organizations grow, the need to develop, monitor, and control policies and procedures becomes a challenging task. This blog post provides an overview of the many benefits of policy management software, from streamlining processes to reducing risk and improving patient outcomes.

 

What Is Healthcare Policy Management?

 

Healthcare policy management is the process of creating, implementing, and evaluating policies and procedures in the healthcare field. Healthcare compliance is complex because there’s no single set of guidelines an organization can reference. Instead, there’s a multitude of local, state, and federal laws and regulations, accrediting organization standards, as well as industry-specific best practices. 

 

 

Policies and procedures encompass human resources, patient care, and emergency management. Policies guide how an organization functions within its stated mission and values. Procedures are the how-to manuals that provide staff with step-by-step instructions for implementing policies.

 

 

Policy management software can streamline this process from creation to implementation and review. Policy management software also helps manage compliance requirements, reduce potential risks, and improve organizational communication.

 

A Policy Management Framework

 

An organization’s policy management framework is its structural approach to policy management. This system includes everything within the policy lifecycle, from creating and implementing policies to monitoring and revising them. A centralized approach provides consistent communication and minimizes risk throughout an organization.

 

An organization’s policy management framework provides guidance to ensure policies stay up-to-date and compliant. It should also outline the various stakeholders involved in policy management, such as subject matter experts, managers, directors and the C-Suite.

 

By having a comprehensive policy management framework, organizations can ensure they meet their goals and objectives while protecting their employees and patients.

 

Challenges Around Policy Management

 

If your organization’s policy management system isn’t well organized or is challenging to navigate, your employees are wasting valuable time, energy, and resources they could dedicate to other worthwhile endeavors. Without comprehensive policy management software, you’ll likely encounter several challenges.

 

 

• Policy Approval Process: Most policies require several stakeholders’ input and approval. Communication and collaboration across the organization are difficult. It’s challenging to track down those stakeholders for signatures and manage version control when people work in different departments and buildings.

 

• Policy Updates and Revisions: Organizations must review all policies and procedures regularly to ensure they remain relevant and compliant with applicable regulations. It’s a Herculean task to manually track which policies need review without notifications or automatic reminders. 

 

• Silo Effect: Policies are difficult to find without a centralized hub or process. Ensuring everyone is on the same page and following the same rules can be challenging. Department leaders end up creating policies and procedures that suit their individual needs. This haphazard approach leads to conflicting information, employee confusion, and compliance nightmares.

 

• Employee Compliance Concerns: Regulatory rules require organizations to ensure employees perform their roles competently. Healthcare organizations often accomplish this task when employees sign attestations that they understand and will follow organizational policies and procedures. Tracking down employees to ensure this compliance is difficult without a functional system in place.

 

Ways Policy Management Software Helps

 

Policy management software can be a great asset to any business. This software provides a streamlined way to manage and store company policies, ensuring they are correctly organized and up-to-date. The ideal system should be easy to implement and intuitive to manage. Helpful features of policy management software include the following:

 

 

• User-Friendly Interface:  Employees are more likely to use software when it’s easy to use and doesn’t require a lot of training. Additionally, they’re more likely to use policies and procedures that are easy to find. 

 

• Automated Processes: Using the software, the organization is able to assign approvals, revisions, and policy management to the appropriate personnel within each policy’s lifecycle at the designated time. In addition, the software can send notifications to relevant personnel regarding any changes in policy and procedures, ensuring that everyone stays up-to-date on the latest information.

 

• Robust Search: Employees should be able to find the policies and procedures relevant to their role within the organization. Keywords and keyphrases can be tagged to guidelines, allowing employees to find what they need even when they don’t know the title.
• Role-based Policies: Create rules within the software that determine who can access policies, editing permissions, and approvals. These can be determined based on roles, titles, or departments.

 

• Audit trails: Track changes made over time, including who made changes and who approved the documents.  

 

• Version Control: Automatically keep track of different versions of policies; staff always have access to the most current version of a policy and procedure.

 

• Automated Policy Distribution: Quickly assign policies and procedures to staff for review and acknowledgement. This feature ensures employees are made aware of any changes or updates promptly. 

 

• Generated Reports: Create reports on policy performance and employee attestation, providing valuable data and insights.

 

Policy management software is a technical solution that organizations can implement to create, communicate, and track policy documents while providing a secure document storage and retrieval platform.

 

The Benefits of Healthcare Policy Management Software

 

There are many benefits to implementing healthcare policy management software. MCN’s ellucid® Policy Manager  provide intelligent document control and workflow management that benefit organizations of any size. Ultimately, policy management software automation improves workflows, allowing organizations to focus on delivering high-quality patient care.

 

Save Time, Money, and Resources

 

It may not seem like adding another software as a service (SaaS) product would provide enough benefit to justify the expense. However, a 2017 American Hospital Association analysis estimated that healthcare providers spend $39 billion annually on activities related to regulatory compliance. 

 

 

Policy management software returns time in your employees’ schedules that they used to spend in meetings or tracking down stakeholders for signatures.

 

• Virtual collaboration decreases the need for in-person meetings, leading to faster reviews and approvals.
• Automated notifications let stakeholders know when policies are approved, or further action is needed.
• Cloud-based hosting and tech support alleviate burdens for your IT department.
• The intuitive interface is user-friendly, and most employees do not require any formal training.

 

 

With automated processes, you can send notifications to the right people at the right time to approve and manage your policies.

 

Streamline Processes

 

Policy management software makes every aspect of the policy life cycle easier. It is a one-stop hub for policy creation, approval, and retrieval.

 

• 24/7 Cloud-based Access: With 99.9% uptime, employees can access the policy manager anytime, anywhere, using MCN Healthcare’s Policy Management Software.
• Robust Search Features: Add keywords and tag applicable regulatory and standard numbers  to your policies. Your frontline employees can find necessary policies even if they don’t know the title. When preparing for regulatory surveys, you can quickly pull up policies when surveyors request them.
• Role-based Permissions: Assign access based on employee titles, roles, and departments.
• Reduction of Redundant and Duplicate policies: Many organizations find that different departments have similar policies. With policy management software, you can identify these redundancies, consolidate them, and ensure that policies are uniform throughout the organization.

 

Maintain Regulatory Compliance

 

Automation helps your organization maintain regulatory compliance. Once the software tags policies and procedures with applicable regulations and standards, you can quickly identify them and make necessary changes. Other features that help maintain compliance include the following:

 

 

• Real-time audit trails
• Version control and auto-archive features
• Policy attestations
• Staff competency assessments
• Automated tracking and reporting
• Risk reduction
• Continual Survey-readiness

 

Improve Quality of Care

 

Your organization strives to provide safe, high-quality care to your patients. Policy management software improves the quality of care at all levels of your organization. Leadership and your regulatory team spend less time writing policies, enabling them to focus on other initiatives. Frontline staff are more likely to follow guidelines when they can find them easily. Well-defined and easily accessible policies and procedures improve the following:

 

• Patient Care Delivery: Minimize variations, leading to more consistent care across the patient care continuum.  
• Evidence-based Care: Regular policy review allows leadership to ensure policies remain up-to-date with best practices.
• Quality Assurance: Well-defined policies create ample opportunities to identify measurable data points. Use this data to create benchmarks and dashboards that measure your organization’s commitment to improvement. 

 

Get Started With a Policy Manager Demo

 

Let’s face it—policy management isn’t an organization’s most exciting or glamorous process. However, it is essential to facilitate smooth operations, maintain regulatory compliance, and provide high-quality patient care. 

 

If your current policy management system is missing the mark, MCN Healthcare is ready to help you save time and streamline processes. Our suite of policy management resources includes the following features:

 

• ellucid® Policy Manager: An intelligent document control and workflow management that streamlines and improves the policy lifecycle. Our team will help you import and manage existing policies.

 

• MCN Policy Library: Don’t start from scratch! MCN’s Policy library is full of customizable policy and procedure templates.

 

• MCN StayAlert!: This email notification system provides important regulatory updates so your organization can react quickly to changes. 

 

• elearning:  Learning management system with content. This intuitive web-based training program and content allows you to easily plan, assign, test, track, and report on education activities, both online and instructor-led.  

 

• Contract Manager: Simplifies and automates the process of creating, editing, approving and signing contracts

 

Save time. Streamline. Be compliant.

 

Our dedicated team is ready to help you unlock the many benefits of policy management software for your organization. Schedule a Policy Manager Demo today!

 

References

Gustafson, Pamela. (2011). Policies and Procedures: Are Yours What They Need to Be?.

Association of Healthcare Internal Auditors. http://www.mcnhealthcare.com/wp-content/uploads/AreYourPoliciesWhatTheyNeedtoBeArticle2011.pdf#wpcf7-f8652-p8650-o1 

 

Research and Markets. (2023, January). Policy Management Software Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2023-2028. https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5732348/policy-management-software-market-global?utm_source=BW&utm_medium=PressRelease&utm_code=7zx9b4&utm_campaign=1706557+-+Worldwide+Policy+Management+Software+Industry+to+2027+-+Featuring+Amdocs,+Cisco+Systems+and+Nokia+Among+Others&utm_exec=jamu273prd 

Simon, M.dB. (2018). Compliance and High Reliability in a Complex Healthcare Organization. Frontiers of Health Services Management. 34(4), 12-25. https://journals.lww.com/frontiersonline/Abstract/2018/06000/Compliance_and_High_Reliability_in_a_Complex.3.aspx