How Ancillary Technologies Are Elevating the Healthcare Industry

When we think about health care providers, we usually picture doctors and nurses. But for every doctor, there may be 10 or more people providing ancillary services and wielding ancillary equipment. Healthcare, simply stated, could not function as we know it without robust ancillary technologies and the service professionals who use them. Here’s how ancillary technology is changing the industry of healthcare. 

What Are Ancillary Health Care Services?

Ancillary health care services are most easily defined as any service that is not directly provided by an acute care specialist like a doctor or dentist. An ancillary health care service is one that complements, supports, or improves a health care provider’s primary activities. 

Ancillary services could be, for example, a third-party lab that a patient is referred to for additional work, or a just separate department of the hospital. They might also never be seen by the patient firsthand, as ancillary health care services can also take the form of behind-the-scenes operations that help support doctors and hospitals in their work.

Some common examples of ancillary health care services include:

• Rehabilitative services
• Hospice care
• Assisted living facilities
• Ambulance/EMS
• Audiology
• Diagnostics
• Lab work
• Genetics
• Pharmacy
• Radiology
• Dialysis
• Medical equipment supply

Types of Ancillary Services in Healthcare

Within the context of the healthcare field, ancillary services are categorized into three distinct categories:

• Diagnostic. Diagnostics help a doctor determine the best course of action for treating a patient. Diagnostics often consist of lab work and imaging.
• Therapeutic. Rehab providers, pharmacists, and physical therapists are some common examples of professionals who provide ancillary health care services of the therapeutic type.
• Custodial. An example of a custodial ancillary health care service would be a nursing home. Custodial services are typically only associated with patients who need help completing day-to-day tasks.

Ancillary health care services are far more than just “secondary” services. They are vital pieces of modern health care that are modular, responsive, and global. Ancillary services can support primary care providers (and patients) in several critical ways, including:

• Allowing doctors to focus on their specializations.
• Outsourcing certain ancillary specialists and services to keep costs manageable for healthcare systems.
• Reducing in-house staff training needs (and staff errors).
• Fostering good relationships between different healthcare professionals and systems.
• Improving trust between patient and provider.
• Modernizing reliance on ancillary healthcare that’s led to the development of integrated information technology systems. These provide an improved experience for both health care providers and patients.
• Helping a system gather and interpret data related to health care outcomes.
• Allowing providers to integrate new models of care delivery without making a system-wide commitment to those models.
• Expanding the reach of the healthcare industry into underserved and remote communities.
• Increasing patient access.
• Decreasing stress on in-house administrative resources.

Ancillary Healthcare and Pandemic Response

During the worst months of the Covid-19 pandemic, many non-critical healthcare appointments and procedures were postponed or delayed indefinitely, while hospitals tightened regulations to keep staff and patients healthy.

As healthcare systems transitioned to a “new normal” while still being very serious about their pandemic response, certain ancillary services came into the spotlight. Information technology and telehealth services played a crucial role in connecting doctors to patients while minimizing the risk for disease transmission.

Vaccine development and deployment represent two more very important ancillary health care services that were highlighted by Covid-19.

Mott Corporation: Your Trusted Partner for Porous Metal Filters, Flow Control Engineering and Custom Filtration Solutions for Ancillary Health Care Applications

Mott Corporation has a long history of success supporting operations that require custom filtration and flow control systems designed to exact specifications. We’re pleased to offer those world-class services and products to our partners in the health care and ancillary service sectors. Whether your field is diagnostics or drug delivery, Mott can help improve your processes and outcomes.

Some of the elements we can provide to help you improve your ancillary technology include:

• Medical drug delivery device technologies
• Micro spargers and quick-change spargers for bioreactor applications
• Flow restrictors for healthcare applications
• Custom filtration solutions
• Flow control for immunoassays

Contact us today to see how we can help you expand and improve your ancillary health care technology.