Automation in healthcare

The healthcare industry is struggling in many places with higher requirements than other industries and is lagging behind in digitization. For example, the handling of sensitive data and the strict procedures that must be followed when processing and storing health records. While patient care should be the primary focus, physicians, nurses and other employees are often busy with administrative tasks that need to be completed. The tasks include patient data creation, detailed reporting, communication with health insurance companies and so on.

And at the organizational level, there are also numerous repetitive tasks that drive up costs and slow down operations. Whether it’s registering new patients or processing payments, many tasks are repetitive and follow specific rules. This means they can be automated, freeing up time for people to focus on higher value tasks.

• Making appointments online via chat and ensuring that appointments are kept through SMS reminders.
• Preliminary diagnoses
• Automate communication with insurance companies
• Supply Management: keep always all inventories up to date, automatic purchase at critical quantity, automated payment of goods, comparison and evaluation of suppliers
• Create patient records and complete patient records
• Clean and always up-to-date document management
• Create cost estimates
• Automatically create and track patient invoices

Take a general care hospital in Europe as an example: with about 2,000 employees, 70,000 emergency visits and 300,000 outpatients / patients annually. This healthcare provider struggled to maintain an efficient operational infrastructure while its customer base continued to grow.

The hospital is in a permanent field of tension: On the one hand, it strives to provide a high and consistent standard of patient care, on the other hand, it is confronted with a mountain of administrative activities. These requirements must be kept in balance. It’s important to document procedures, but unfortunately this is where employee time is tied up with paperwork or transferring handwritten records to a digital format. These rather mindless tasks reduce the time account for personal patient care.

By using RPA, the hospital was able to streamline and accelerate parts of its processes, while also increasing transparency for patients. The use of software robots to determine optimal stock levels or to deal with claims and settlements has significantly reduced the processing workload. Patients could now access their medical history, billing information or appointment schedules from one platform. This meant that medical professionals could now have a better flow of patients and spend more time with them, making it easier for the hospital to serve its clients while increasing timely payments.

Some benefits that a hospital or other healthcare provider may see from RPA include:

• Streamlined front-office support: software robots can respond more efficiently and quickly to patient requests, making patient flow more positive for both the patient and the clinic.
• Data security: Data transfers through automated processes are always confidential, eliminating human error from the outset.
• Superior system compatibility: Because automation software, as developed by UiPath, is a process, it does not interfere with existing healthcare systems and applications. This means that it can run successfully without the need for additional investment in system changes.
• Better cost management: The cost of a software robot is only a fraction of the cost of a human employee. For repetitive error-prone tasks RPA can provide significant savings that can be reinvested, creating the opportunity for better patient care.

RPA is already an important digitization component and will continue to gain in importance in the future due to rising costs in the healthcare system and increasing patient numbers. In conjunction with AI, it can be assumed that processes and solutions will evolve enormously over the next few years, fundamentally changing the way we handle patient data and interact with patients. The aim must be to relieve the burden on phycisians, reduce costs and focus on treatment, thus also increasing the service provided to patients.