Robotic Process Automation creates untapped opportunities for the healthcare sector. Here at Quanton we’ve recently had the opportunity to work with OmniHealth, a Kiwi primary care provider working to ensure there are strong, effective and sustainable general practice systems for the future.
And, our work with OmniHealth has seen us develop a Robotic Assistant in under five weeks that is giving doctors back more time to spend with their patients.
'OH-Bot' has helped bring down patient waiting times, reduced the need for OmniHealth to add additional doctors – at a time when doctors are in short supply – increased staff happiness, and upped the organisations data quality. And, taking advice from our 2020 guide to Robotic Process Automation, it was all achieved in a five-week project.
OH-Bot, and our work with OmniHealth, and Robotic Process Automation in Healthcare, highlights some key areas where automation can help in the healthcare sector.
1. Doctors should work with patients not their computer
It’s obvious, isn’t it? Doctors value lies in being with patients, not in data entry. And at a time when staff shortages are biting deep for the public health system and many GP practices, that’s never been truer. In the next five years more than 25% of GPs will retire exasperating the situation
With resources stretched, freeing up doctors and other medical staff from admin duties and enabling them to focus on clinical work, is even more important. And. Robotic Process Automation is just one tool that can help do that for the Healthcare sector.
In OmniHealth’s case, OH-Bot, built on the UiPath Robotic Process Automation platform, has given over 194 hours back to clinical staff annually with just one process in one practice, after one process was automated. That’s the equivalent of nearly five weeks work for a full-time staff member. That increase in efficiency can bring down wait times, allow doctors to spend more time with patients or see more patients.
And let’s be clear: This isn’t about getting rid of staff. It’s all about enabling medical practitioners to focus on the highest value work, delivering quality patient care.
2. Increasing staff satisfaction
For OmniHealth the development of OH-Bot wasn’t just about cost efficiencies. In fact, that took a back seat to the ability to remove a real pain point for their medical practitioners.
Robotic Process Automation works best for repetitive, data-intensive, mundane tasks. The very tasks most people don’t want to carry out. Humans, on the other hand, are best utilised for value adding, specialist, often human interfacing, tasks.
Combine the two and you could have a winning formula for business success – and staff satisfaction.
3. From siloed data to meaningful insights to change health care practice
Many general practices and primary healthcare organisations, have a core patient management system along with peripheral systems, be they for bookings or the systems of providers they’re contracted to, which often don’t play well together.
When you don’t want to upgrade or replace your entire system, Robotic Process Automation can enable organisations to add a layer over the top of disparate systems to bridge the different systems. Not only can you automate transferring of data, but you can pull silos together and get meaningful insights into the data you have.
4. With greater data quality there will be less errors
Most organisations have problems with their data and the quality of it because it is not verified after being entered. Robotic Process Automation can flag exceptions and anywhere there’s a data mismatch, so that it can be addressed. Over time, data gets better and better. And with that, so too does the potential for more meaningful insights.
This point as critically important as we move into an ‘AI-driven’ age. Data is the fuel for smart systems. The potential for AI, Machine Learning and predictive analytics in health are massive. But the potential opportunity can only be realized if we have critical pieces like data.
5. It’s also about the patients and customers
It’s easy to think that automation is a tool or approach to drive business imperatives. And it is, but it’s not all it is. Professor Leslie Willcocks from the London School of Economics regularly talks about the concept of ‘the triple win’. When applied correctly automation can drive benefit for stakeholders, staff and customers, or in this case patients.
Adding value to the customer experience can perhaps create the greater return on investment of all to an organisation. What does it mean to a patient when a healthcare facility consistently processes all referrals received and reply within minutes – no matter what volume are received? For a patient wondering how long they are going to have to wait for a response this can remove a lot of anxiety and create trust rapidly.
In some use-cases outside of health we are seeing organisations process customer requests on-demand 24-hours a day. How impressed is the busy parent who filled in an online form last thing at night because that’s when they remembered and finds a confirmation email in their in-box the next morning?
Automation, AI and the future of technology can change how businesses deliver their services and provide value to customers. And we give the innovators in New Zealand businesses everything they need to know to start in Robotic Process Automation - The 2020 Guide.
The opportunity is now.