Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Use Cases in Healthcare

Healthcare is constantly changing to be able to reach a wider amount of patients and improve services. However, since healthcare is a specialized field that deals with strict regulations and a mass amount of sensitive information, automation is not yet prevalent in healthcare settings. According to Peter G. Peterson Foundation, healthcare costs are expected to increase by an average of 5.5% yearly in the next decade. At the operational level, nurses, doctors, and other staff have to deal with a large number of administrative tasks, such as filing health records before they can focus on patient  care. At the organizational level, tasks such as payment processing and enrolling new patients are also repetitive and done manually, which slow down operations and drive up the cost.

According to McKinsey, a majority of occupations can automate about 30% of the tasks. With the main benefit of automating a large number of repetitive tasks, RPA is the exact solution for healthcare providers, allowing hospitals and healthcare coverage administrators to cut costs and time.

Source: IndustryWired

Benefits from implementing RPA into processes include: 

• Save costs and improve efficiency: Like how RPA improves this in other fields, healthcare is not an exception. Automating repetitive, prone-to-mistake administrative tasks will help employees reduce workload, save time and reduce costs. 
• Improve data confidentiality: With the sensitive nature of data in the healthcare setting, RPA helps to encrypt all the data once input is in the system and files it correctly, which ensures safety for patients’ information and reduces human errors. 
• Powerful administrative support: RPA can automatically handle claims requests and , process patient scheduling, which frees up employees to focus more on high-function patient care tasks. 
• Non-invasive software: RPA does not interfere with essential systems as it operates on the presentation layer of most existing healthcare IT infrastructure.

With all the mentioned above advantages, how can RPA be applied to health care settings? Here are a few common use cases of RPA for healthcare providers: 

• Enhanced healthcare cycle: With a large number of patients using healthcare services, providers collect vast amounts of different types of data every day. RPA can help providers extract and optimize these data more easily. Moreover, these data can be turned into useful analytics that can assist physicians and nurses with diagnoses and individualized treatments for patients. 
• Scheduling patients appointments: With the manual way of scheduling, clinics or hospitals require staff to be present to interact or take calls, look up open slots, and put in patients’ information. With RPA, patients can schedule online and fill in the necessary information. The software will take incoming data, assemble the needed report, and direct the appointment request to the open slots and correct places. 
• Improve revenue cycle: RPA can assist in reducing payment delays and financial loopholes by automating the invoice processes in line with the services provided  to customers.  
• Inventory management: An inefficient, non-real-time tracking system can result in 20-30% of a hospital’s  inventory being unused. RPA can provide an up-to-date and effortless tracking system for inventory, which reduces the hassle for staff and saves costs for the hospitals. 

These are just a few examples of how RPA can be applied in the healthcare settings and improve efficiency across the organization. Faster and more accurate handling of business processes will improve clinical workflows and allow staff to focus on optimizing patient care.

References:

• How Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Can Improve Clinical Outcomes
• Why RPA is Literally Vital: Top 5 Use Cases in Healthcare
• Healthcare Costs for Americans Projected to Grow at an Alarmingly High Rate
• RPA for the Healthcare Industry – Healthcare Automation
• 6 Real World Use Cases for RPA in Healthcare

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