Healthcare Workflow Automation Solutions for Software-based Online & Non-software-based Manual Workflows
9 months ago
Healthcare workflow automation is the key to bringing peace of mind into the ecosystem!
Because it does not matter how futuristic and feature-packed healthcare software you are using – if your clinical staff needs to operate that healthcare software manually, you’re terribly wasting time, cost, and resources.
Instead of that, imagine that healthcare software does the majority of tedious tasks such as – data entry, data extraction, and reporting automatically by itself.
With this, you would not only save time for your clinical team but prevent burnout and empower them to deliver quality care as they now have more time to focus on patient care needs.
And in the next 3 minutes, you’ll know exactly how!
What is Healthcare Workflow Automation?
Healthcare workflow automation is the process of automating manual tasks.
And there are mainly two manual workflows that you can automate in your healthcare organization.
1. Software-based Online Workflows
If you are using any kind of software that requires manual operating, you can automate those manual tasks such as
- Data entry
- Sending reminders
- Data extraction
All with healthcare workflow automation solutions.
For example, you can automate,
- Prescription data entry into pharmacy management software like Kroll
- Reporting to nursing home management software
- Entire patient admission and discharge workflows performed in EHR/EMR
- The clinical form processing process
- Billing workflow in the medical billing software
- Patient engagement workflows such as reminders in patient engagement software
- Data management processes
Overall, it automates almost every task performed by humans in any type of medical software.
2. Non-software-based Manual Workflows
There are several manual tasks that cost a healthcare organization their valuable time and resources.
That workflow includes,
- Appointment booking and confirmation via phone call
- Give reminders to patients regarding their prescription refill over call
- Data extraction from PDF and performing data entry manually
But with healthcare workflow automation solutions you can eliminate such time-consuming and error-prone workflows.
How Does Healthcare Workflow Automation Prevent Burnout in Healthcare?
The busiest and most stressed person in the clinical room is always a clinician.
Because they not only provide care to patients but keeps track of and update everything into several software such as EMR/EHR to appointment booking to patient engagement etc.
While healthcare software makes it very easy for them to enhance patient outcomes, it briefly increases their administrative work which they need to carry out in software manually.
And this extra workload which isn’t clinical work results in physician burnout.
But by automating clinicians’ tasks on healthcare software they are using, you can free clinicians from manual and time-consuming work.
And this leads to more available time and zero or negligible clinician burnout.
Talking about non-software-based workflows, well, it’s a hectic process for administrative tasks.
For example, they have to book and schedule appointments over the call.
It’s a tedious and time-consuming process, there is no doubt about it.
Furthermore, over the call, there is always a high possibility of miscommunication which may result in a life-threatening situation for the patient and financial loss for you.
But you can automate such workflow by developing a chatbot.
It helps patients with their queries regarding – appointments, prescription refills, symptoms etc.
This not only saves your administrative hours but also streamlines your clinical workflows.
How to Automate Healthcare Workflows Performed over Software Manually?
It is a complex task.
But for experts, it is a piece of cake.
And there are three major ways of automating software-based manual tasks.
1. RPA (Robotic Process Automation)
IRPA technology is the most popular technology to automate healthcare workflows.
Using RPA technology, RPA developers build a software bot in any of the RPA automation tools such as UiPath or Automation Anywhere.
This software bot is trained to perform fixed tasks by itself.
All you need to do is, install this software bot same as installing a .exe file on your computer and see the magic.
However, there are mainly two types of bots in it – attended and unattended.
- If it is an attended bot, you have to activate it when you need it.
- If it is an unattended bot, it activates by itself at a fixed time or after a fixed event.
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2. OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
When the software bot has to scan PDFs to identify characters and make its digital data entry in the system or software, it utilizes OCR technology.
OCR is a powerful technology that enables you to extract data from images, PDF files and printed or written text in machine-readable text format.
3. AI (Artificial Intelligence)
When the software bot has to automate a process that does not have fixed input and output, it utilizes AI and machine learning technologies.
Such a kind of automation is called cognitive automation.
A software bot built upon cognitive automation is capable of making decisions like humans by itself.
You must also read: How is AI Used in Healthcare?
Watch this video to understand how the software bot is adding clinical data filled into physical forms into a CSV file and then into healthcare software, all automatically.
Can any Healthcare Software and Workflow be Automated?
Yes.
However, the complexity to automate different healthcare software is different.
And it majorly depends on the type of software processes you want to automate.
For example, if you want to automate the prescription data entry process into pharmacy management software (like Kroll), you would require a software bot working on both RPA and OCR technologies.
But if you want to automate the reminder process on patient engagement software, you would require a basic software bot working on RPA technology.
Similarly, if there is a more complex process even on the very basic healthcare software, you would require an advanced software bot working on AI and ML as well!
So, in this sense, the complexity of healthcare workflow automation largely depends on the type of process you want to automate, not the software itself.
What are the Benefits of Healthcare Workflow Automation?
The biggest benefit of it is that – a clinician can focus on the patient care needs without putting in the extra effort!
Apart from that, there are several other benefits that bring peace of mind to the entire healthcare organization.
1. Reduced Paperwork
Our healthcare ecosystem is surrounded by mountains of paperwork.
From administrative to nurse and physician, almost every task requires some kind of manual paperwork.
This restricts both administrative and clinical staff to pay attention to the exact care needs of patients.
But with healthcare workflow automation, you can eliminate paper-based workflows from your organization.
For example, you can eliminate the paper-based workflow related to patient intake and discharge with online intake forms!
2. Enhanced Patient Safety
Medical error is the third leading cause of death.
Additionally, it costs $55 billion annually around the globe.
And there is a single reason behind it – manual workflows.
However, a healthcare workflow automation solution enables you to eliminate the possibility of medical errors.
As an aftermath, it automatically increases patient safety.
3. Lowered Wait Times
Long wait times are not just costlier but also life-threatening for the patient.
The primary reason behind it is – time-consuming administrative tasks and clinician burnout.
But with healthcare automation workflows, you can easily avoid such a mess with ease.
4. Saves Time and Cost
Healthcare workflow automation eliminates paper-based and software-based manual workflows.
This enables clinicians to speed up care delivery without putting extra effort and time into manual tasks.
As an aftermath, it improves the operation efficiency and saves valuable time and costs on each task.
How Much Does it Cost to Automate Healthcare Workflows? What’s the ROI?
Well, the cost depends on several factors such as the type of process you want to automate, automation tools, type of software bot etc.
Thus, it is not feasible for now to estimate the cost without knowing your exact requirements.
However, we can surely help you calculate the ROI.
Talking about ROI – if a clinician spends 1 hour doing tedious and repetitive tasks on the healthcare software every day, you can save 1 hour daily per one clinician using automation.
This is your direct ROI.
Indirect ROI includes no clinical burnouts, faster delivery of care, no errors, high efficiency and clinicians having more free time and mental peace.
How to Get Started with Healthcare Workflow Automation with Us?
We're an Ontario-based healthcare-focused IT company.
In addition to design, development and QA, we help healthcare providers, clinics, hospitals, and startups to automate their time-consuming workflows using RPA, OCR, AI, and ML.
We have hands-on experience in automating Kroll workflows, EMR/EHR workflows, patient engagement tools workflows, medical billing workflows, patient discharge & admission workflows.
We’ve come to know from our clients that we help them save at least 10000 clinical hours every year.
And being a Canadian company, we always ensure to deploy automation while not compromising patient data privacy and security.
Before automating a software-based and non-software-based workflow, we assess, plan, and set KPIs because each healthcare workflow needs to be treated differently when it comes to automation.
If you want to automate healthcare workflows, we don’t want you to contact us first.
First, collect the strength to face the reality of what you have wasted so far by keeping a distance from automation!