It is no question that healthcare has seen major changes over the last few months, forcing new protocols and procedures and bringing added stresses and anxieties. Many healthcare systems are having to spend less time on routine and or repetitive tasks in an effort to streamline those processes and spend more time caring for patients.
One way hospitals are doing this is with Robotic Process Automation (RPA). RPA is essentially a form of process automation that uses metaphorical software or artificial intelligence (AI) to preform mundane tasks.
RPA is able to replicate almost any ‘predictable’ human interaction, such as: logging into applications, moving files, filling in templates or forms, and more. Utilizing this technology, or something similar, allows for staff to have more time that can be used in caring for patients.
A Few Use Cases In Healthcare:
Healthcare Data: Medical centers are collecting large amounts of patent data each day, week, month, year. This information ranges from personal information (Sex, DOB, MRN, etc.) to treatment specifications. When utilizing an automation platform, these systems are able to automatically optimize patient data, allowing for them to share that information with other systems. With a better data set, organizations are able to better report analytics, giving their staff a more transparent look into a patient and helping them make a more accurate diagnosis and provide more personalized care.
Claims processing: Many systems’ claims process includes data entry, a processing time, and an evaluation period. These processes can be done both within a software or manually- but this can be time consuming and error prone due to the manual nature of data entry.
Scheduling Appointments: RPA can help with forms filled out by patients online, directing the appointment to the correct queue.
The recent pandemic has forced many organizations to be quicker and more efficient. Cleveland Clinic deployed an RPA to aid in the check in process- analyzing their patient data, getting them registered and correctly label the patient COVID-19 test kit. That entire process takes only 15 seconds.
Automation technology holds so much potential in healthcare. As we look to the future organizations need to hone in on what their goals are? Are they to improve patient care? Is it a cost savings plan? Or are you looking to free up physicians time to lessen burn out?
Here at Extract, we know that medical staff can spend half their day working on issues with information backlogs or handling administrative tasks. That is why we developed the HealthyData platform, which takes important data from your incoming unstructured documents and sends it directly to your EMR or other downstream system. With this automated workflow, clinicians can focus on patient care, allow HIM to eliminate manual data entry, and historical data at their fingertips.
If you are interested in learning more about how our HealthyData platform can make your data and documents more valuable and actionable, please reach out today.
Sources:
https://www.healthcareglobal.com/technology/how-rpa-closing-gap-between-healthcare-and-technology
About the Author: Taylor Genter
Taylor is the Marketing Specialist at Extract with experience in data analytics, graphic design, and both digital and social media marketing. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing at the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater. Taylor enjoys analyzing people’s behaviors and attitudes to find out what motivates them, and then curating better ways to communicate with them.