Healthcare Process Automation

What Is Process Automation in Healthcare?

Healthcare problems have recently increased with the breakout of the coronavirus pandemic. More people have become worried about their health conditions and need well-qualified medical help. That is why healthcare services are overloaded nowadays because many physicians have experienced burnout and cannot work effectively, while the global lack of well-trained and dedicated healthcare professionals is increasing. In addition, many of them have reached retirement age, while others have remained to care for the continuously aging population that also grows proportionally. The work overload is worsened by more demanding medical documentation that healthcare specialists have to deal with every day.

All these factors influence the quality of healthcare services, and that requires thorough attention and appropriate measures to be taken. Electronic health record (EHR) technology introduced in the USA and other countries also needs a workforce for considerate adaptation and introduction. That is why robotic process automation (RPA) healthcare is an essential demand of present-day medical services. It allows for the optimization of all processes and attracts a more advanced and future-bounded workforce.

Therefore, let’s discuss how this technology can improve clinical performance by automation routine processes and allowing more time for high-quality medical services. You will also learn here how to implement the technology for your needs and avoid unnecessary risks and issues.

Therefore, since most processes and operations healthcare specialists have to fulfill are repetitive and monotonous, they evoke tiredness and frustration in medical professionals. In addition, while tired, they can make bad errors. On the other hand, RPA bots involved with the help of specifically developed applications are tireless and accurate, so they perfectly cope with all the work that does not need any specific human skills.

When a medical organization makes its healthcare providers perform repetitive and boring tasks, it loses both costs and competitive opportunities. On the contrary, healthcare process automation can help them deal with numerous challenges related to workflows, such as operating financial systems, completing electronic health records, and other clinical documentation, solving compliance and billing issues, as well as scheduling appointments. That is why almost 80% of all healthcare organizations are eager to implement automation solutions or have already started doing that. A lot of robotic process automation use cases in healthcare prove the correctness of such a choice. You can find proof of their efficiency and great advancements of the medical companies which introduced such strategies in their everyday work.

The results of the successful RPA implementation are pretty compelling. The companies that prefer to use this technological solution can obtain an investment return within a year. The enhanced compliance and accurately performed tasks speak in favor of such a choice. Employees become more careful and productive, and the quality of medical services improves to a high extent

You can consider many RPA use cases in healthcare to meet the point and find evidence for the necessity of the RPA software introduction into all those routine procedures. One such example is Well-Being and Healthcare LLC, a prominent and reputable medical service provider, that once aimed at extending its business and came across the problems of limited work resources and severe budget restrictions. Even if they had planned to triple their service volume within the next three years, they could not do that because of the limited administration costs accompanied by more workflow needs and a harsh decrease in the quality of all claims’ processing within specifically indicated timelines.

The company decided to automate its routine repetitive operations by ordering front-end development from an outsourcing IT company. It took them about a month to adopt the technology. The four robotic processors for dealing with claims allowed the company to expand without involving any extra costs. The membership grew extensively from 25,000 to almost 80,000, while claim processing errors decreased by 1.1 percent. This solution allowed for the complete elimination of the claims backlog which resulted in more customer satisfaction with medical services provision.

The company also managed to increase its auto-adjudication rates up to 96 percent. The managers also understood that healthcare process automation is helpful not only for claims processing but other manual operations. The application created by our developers helped update more than 4,500 provider data files in about five hours.

Therefore, what benefits can RPA implementation in the healthcare industry bring? They are the following:

━ increasing doctor visits’ turnout by reminding patients of their next appointments;

━ optimizing the customer support services by facilitating the management of patients’ requests;

━ reducing the probability of severe human errors;

━ more employee satisfaction and a better work-life balance;

━ boosting the transparency of all operations, transfers, and procedures with the help of the step-by-step record;

━ decreasing costs spent by medical organizations to pay their personnel for manual operations.

The RPA software demonstrates many capabilities to improve most routine healthcare procedures and operations. It can extract data from the available online systems. The application does that by relating the interface performance to the back end and by mimicking human behavior for getting to the system from the front end.

An effective automatic solution can involve plug-ins for connecting with other systems of the company, a scheduling or orchestration layer, process mining, and various bot-creating tools. Examples of the RPA technology development options used for automation in healthcare include:

━ recorders;

━ extensions;

━ development studios;

━ professional and experienced designers;

━ control centers;

━ bot runners;

━ various plug-in developers, etc.

All of them can help your company introduce automation in your healthcare performance smoothly and effectively. You will see how beneficial the technology is for your routine work and how many employees will enjoy it and feel more engaged in their practical work but not in dull documentary processing and monotonous operations.

How to Ensure RPA Implementation

Robotic process automation healthcare implementation can reduce the cost of any medical project. You will not need so many employees because the time and effort-consuming work will be done by bots. Nevertheless, bot development for different needs and purposes may cost you a fortune. That is why it is so important to avoid inefficient RPA software use or never postpone its introduction when everything was already done halfway. The failure of such a project can be a result of poor preparation and development issues. Therefore, you need to ensure effective implementation with the help of the following strategy.

Step 1. Proper Planning

You need to decide in advance what operations you want to automate. Consider possible logistical problems or potential compatibility issues. All the new software should correlate properly with the present and ongoing processes and systems your company is currently using. You should also consider all implementation risks and make plans for how to avoid them. Choose developers for your RPA software and contact them to discuss the requirements of the projects beforehand.

Step 2. Preparation for the Software Introduction

Do not rush to deploy the software. You need a consultation from a professional business analyst first. Ask them to research the existing workflow and collect feedback from stakeholders. Based on this study’s results, the analyst will recommend specific automation opportunities and which processes should be introduced or improved. The developers will make up the rules and instructions for your individual RPA related to those recommendations to avoid difficulties in the future.

Step 3. Introduction and Testing Processes

Suppose your RPA implementation has already started. You need to monitor the process carefully because even the best solution can produce both positive and negative outcomes. In this case, it is important to detect and eliminate bugs, identify possible degradations, and remove all insufficiencies. After this, you can deploy bots and scale their operation without any further obstacles.

Step 4. Continuous Need for Support and Maintenance

Even if your healthcare process automation has already started successfully, you need to maintain its productivity, especially after the full development is completed. The RPA software needs updates across its entire database. It also wants constant bot maintenance, especially if they are connected to payment-providing platforms, billing systems, and EHRs.

Don’t forget to consider various RPA use cases in healthcare to understand the technology’s benefits and limitations. You can also combine it with other automation technologies to achieve the best results.

Final Thoughts

When you implement RPA for your healthcare company’s performance, don’t forget that even the most cutting-edge and intelligent solution has its limitations. Never feel disappointed when something goes wrong. You only need to consider why discrepancies or issues have happened to avoid them in the future.

You can also combine your healthcare process automation software with machine learning, artificial intelligence, automatic recognition of speech, language processing, and other technologies to get the most out of it.

You should always follow a complex strategy and pick up the most suitable technologies for your needs. Rely more on your developer and service provider’s expertise and relate to them for consultations and service management if needed. The RPA software will provide you with the best results very soon if you use it properly. Your company will flourish and get more recognition from customers and stakeholders if it works smoothly and efficiently.