By Katie Brenneman, Writer, Researcher
X: @KatieBWrites93
The healthcare industry benefits from advances in technology in various areas. Some of these get a lot of attention in the sector, such as 3D printing in organ transplants and diagnostic software. But, for leaders of healthcare facilities, some tools can help with various practical elements of operations.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and website monitoring tools are key examples of these. They both have multiple applications for boosting the efficacy of healthcare facilities. By getting to know these platforms and establishing where you can best implement them, you can help make your facility a more positive, secure, and useful space for patients and professionals alike.
Improving Security
Security is essential in any healthcare organization. Patient data is highly sensitive, which makes it a practical and lucrative component of your healthcare practice. Unfortunately, its high value can make this data a particularly alluring target for cybercriminals. Aside from the legal requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), facilities have an ethical duty to ensure that patients are not exposed to breaches. Not to mention that safeguarding trust among patients can ensure healthcare organizations retain consumers.
Website content monitoring is one way for your organization to maintain security and compliance in online environments. Alongside tracking performance and content interactions, this software can identify unusual behavior that could suggest hacking attempts. It can also highlight functionality issues that present vulnerabilities. Given that your website can be a direct gateway to your healthcare facility’s data and networks, this tool is key to gaining immediate notice of problems so that your information technology (IT) team can respond effectively.
At the same time, AI can perform real-time threat detection on your wider networks. These software platforms are integrated with healthcare organizations’ systems to constantly monitor for signs of potential breaches. Many will also use industry data and organizational insights to make risk predictions, allowing managers to adopt more informed protective measures. Some platforms can automatically address threats, including sandboxing suspicious phishing emails and malware for review by IT and cybersecurity teams. These tools are particularly vital since the healthcare industry is expected to see increasing threats from AI-driven cybercrime methods.
Staying Relevant
Relevance is important in the healthcare industry. Providers need to be able to offer patients the most useful and in-demand services in their part of the sector. Another important area of relevance is your online materials. Website content must also offer users up-to-date and engaging advice. This isn’t just to provide patients with value but to help combat the spread of misinformation as well. Staying on top of this can be quite challenging, but website monitoring and AI can help.
Firstly, website content monitoring tools can perform regular checks on your pages and gather various forms of data. Specifically regarding content, you can get deep insights into what pages visitors are particularly interested in, what the bounce rates are from specific content posts, and how long users spend on each item.
How does this help you stay relevant? You can use this data to better understand what is engaging patients. For instance, data that shows a lot of recent hits on specific service pages could suggest changes in demand. This could influence you to expand your provision of these treatments or other related services.
Understanding whether users bounce from content — like blog posts on health information — may suggest that they aren’t getting the practical information they need from it. This gives you the chance to review the content and perhaps even reach out to patients for more insights, empowering you to make relevant changes.
AI-driven analytics, on the other hand, can be a useful tool for understanding patient needs. With access to wider industry data and patient information, AI can use machine learning algorithms to conduct assessments and predict demand. As a result, your healthcare facility can adjust to better handle service requests, like hiring more staff. This prevents your facility from scrambling to respond to requests, which risks disrupting access to services.
Supporting Effective Operations
The efficient running of all aspects of any healthcare organization is vital, as it supports positive patient outcomes. Using AI has the potential to enhance your operational efficiency in several ways. Primarily, platforms utilizing large language models (LLMs) can automate aspects of medical practices. Chatbots can handle elements of initial patient contact and perform data entry, freeing staff to focus on direct patient care and essential manual aspects. Analytics platforms can also assess your operations and networks to highlight inefficiencies in workflow.
For these tools to function well, it’s vital that your organization’s data is ready for AI integration. Many AI tools perform via cloud services, so your IT team must streamline the flow of information between your networks and these platforms. Most importantly, you must be strict in identifying and providing only the data that is essential functioning, so that you don’t potentially breach HIPAA compliance guidelines.
In addition, website monitoring has a role to play in operational efficiency. Your facility’s website is likely to be many patients’ first port of call when reviewing services and making appointments. Indeed, more facilities are utilizing their websites as the patient portal for telehealth appointments. Monitoring software can keep track of downtime and performance issues in real-time. It can also pinpoint issues with responsiveness when patients use their phones to access your website. As a result, your IT team can arrange to shift hosting if the current provider isn’t keeping up with patient demand. They can also swiftly address functionality errors that impact patients’ online experiences.
Conclusion
AI and website monitoring tools have the potential to boost healthcare practices in various ways. AI’s analytical processes can spot gaps in network security and predict patient needs, while website monitoring software can highlight performance issues and also improve content relevance. It’s important to understand that these aren’t just systems you can plug in and leave to their own devices. They require preparation and assessment to ensure they’re optimized. Therefore, it’s essential to work with your IT and cybersecurity teams to establish the best use cases and integrate these powerful tools effectively.
