The New Frontier of Automation in Healthcare

Imagine a process improvement that increases productivity not by 10 or 50 percent, but by 1,000 percent or even more. Envision reducing a process cycle time not by hours or days but weeks and lowering operations costs by manifolds.

It seemed like a pipe dream, but RPA has made all of this a reality.

Wow! But How?

So, when you automate processes, it definitely results in bringing operational efficiency, reducing Turn-Around-Time, and slashing costs. Your doctors and other nursing staff now have more time to personally attend your patients, offering a sense of security and peace of mind to them. Likewise, your administrative staff who were till now entrenched in manually intensive tasks can now perform more value-based tasks resulting in an undeniable increase in their sense of belonging.

Awesome! But What’s in it for the institutions? 

A lot, seriously. And we have the numbers to prove this.

According to a report by Allied Marketing Research, the global healthcare information technology (IT) market size which was valued at $250,577.15 million in 2020 is projected to reach $880,688.75 million by 2030, registering a CAGR of 13.3% from 2021 to 2030. Additional research conducted indicates that healthcare industries have plans of spending 61% of their IT budget towards adopting scalable RPA tools.  Also, 77 % of your counterparts who operate in the same industry agree that automation creates an opportunity to focus on providing higher-quality information, and analytical insights to support the entire organization and that automation technology is an opportunity that will yield a stepwise improvement in efficiency.

RPA has something for everyone and regardless of the size of your organization, it will still drive better patient outcomes, improve employee engagement, and accelerate digital transformation.

Super!. Where do I start? 

It’s simple, and while you may assume entry points within the finance, accounting, and revenue cycle management department, it is patient health and clinical services from where RPA can make an entry in your organization.

Let’s drill down into both:

Clinical Services – Here, you will find numerous opportunities within the front and back-office functional areas, such as scheduling, EMR optimization and utilization, and document triage. Revenue cycle management activities such as pre-auths, automatic bad-debt write-offs, and insurance refund payments are also widespread.

Patient Health – Addresses Population health management at scale, proactively reaches out, educates, and manages patients’ health. Meanwhile, your patients also benefit from increased coordination of care, ownership, and visibility into their health records and more time with their physicians to build a stronger relationship.

I am getting the vibe! What more? 

That’s great, here is a list of other benefits: 

Improve Front-office capabilities – When applied to inquiry desks or any other customer-facing platforms, RPA can achieve complex language, named entity recognition, and sentiment analysis capabilities by integrating Google, Microsoft, IBM & ABBYY cognitive and OCR services to respond to patient’s requests efficiently.

Enhance Data confidentiality – A lot of patient’s sensitive information is accessed during the automation of data transfer, discharge, or claim processing. With RPA, the confidentiality of data is maintained as the software robots do not store the information locally but do so by using Orchestrator while using the server option.

Easily Extract Information – With RPAs computer vision technology, software robots can extract information from images, PDFs, and even videos that can be used by administrative staff for further use.

Manage Cost – You can contain costs by implementing RPA in various operational activities like scheduling patient’s appointments, enrollment, billing, claim processing, etc.

These are just a few examples of how this technology can augment accuracy across your organization and fuel profitability. Allowing RPA software to manage business processes will enhance clinical workflows, give back time to your staff, and tailor treatments for patients.

Jump! How high? 

Sky’s the limit when it comes to RPA, and it has more in its bucket than we could probably cover in a single article. Now, it is your turn,  make up your mind and think of areas where RPA can benefit most, involve your team, and be ready to witness a change in your organization’s landscape.