Healthcare organizations are increasingly facing a glaring hurdle in today’s climate: widespread staffing shortages. Following the emergence of COVID-19, health care staff have been increasingly subject to higher rates of burnout. Vacancies for positions of all types are on the rise, from physicians and nurses to allied health workers. Furthermore, staffing shortages are expected to continue for some time, with some recent findings suggesting that the healthcare industry may be down up to 3.2 million workers by the year 2026.
Most healthcare organizations have also experienced an increase in overall administrative spending over recent years. The 2022 CAQH Index report indicates that there was a 50 percent increase in such spending that year.
As organizations rise to meet the challenges associated with staffing shortages and rising costs, they are undertaking a variety of efforts to attract new staff and improve the efficiency of their processes. For example, some organizations have focused on eliminating some of the burdens placed on providers to complete prior authorizations for patient care.
However, increasing electronic adoption and automation of processes remains a prime target for reducing organizational inefficiencies. As healthcare worker scarcity increases across departments, the costs associated with staffing have risen also.
While healthcare organizations are subject to extraordinary demand for employees (particularly nursing care), integrating and leveraging automated tools can help them alleviate these expenses by reducing total time spent on administrative duties, freeing employees to complete other pressing tasks. A recent industry survey suggested that a large majority of the 25 largest US healthcare payers listed automation as one of their most effective cost-reduction measures.
Organizations that have seen a lot of success with integrating automation into their workflows have typically chosen to employ it in highly targeted and developed solutions. These are places where the scope of the work to be automated is well understood in advance and the tools utilized are purpose-built for that intention. Extract Systems offers several software tools to this end, with healthcare products centered around improving data capture quality and speed. In an era where all healthcare providers are under staffing and spending pressure, consider Extract software as a means to target and reduce administrative overhead, and enable staff to be used more often where they’re most helpful.
About the Author: Alexander Lee
Alexander Lee is a Quality Assurance Analyst/Technical Writer at Extract with prior experience in software testing and documentation. He attended the University of Wisconsin – Madison and received his B.A. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. Alexander enjoys breaking down complicated material into simple language and finding exotic bugs.