The healthcare domain is on the frontline in all regards in the midst of the onslaught of COVID-19. This fact is one that should stir great gratitude, sympathy, for healthcare professionals as public health is of primary concern to a nation and its constituent citizens. Interest in public welfare is the hallmark of civilization, and that might just be the silver lining of our COVID cloud.  

Care, safety and welfare, security of information and comfort and fulfillment of a patient’s health-related hopes are the primary details to focus upon for any healthcare organization, big or small. Therefore, the industry is required to keep itself updated with the latest advancements in the technology that drives healthcare. Here’s a staggering fact to chew on before we start this article: Analysts predict, that by the year 2100, the average human lifespan will be 5000 years! That’s not a joke. 

Nation states the world over have been taking initiatives, and making investments to enable the latest technologies and advancements in this domain. Tech within healthcare, at the present, consists of an increased utilization of electronic operations, e-services, and the utilization of AI. (Artificial Intelligence). They are not being applied to their fullest capability, though, and the domain is direly requiring a lot of drastic changes – an evolution should be imminent. 

Particularly, looking at the prevailing COVID-19 scenario, efficiency and accuracy have gone to the top of the list as spheres to concentrate upon for healthcare organizations, and to accomplish this, having a secure, viable, and robust cyber workforce has taken top priority.  

RPA (Robotic Process Automation) can be of great assistance with regards to this application. RPA helps businesses to function in more intelligent ways by eradicating monotonous, time intensive, manual tasks of an ongoing nature. This frees up human resources for more spirited, soulful endeavors by fostering engagement with high value activities and simultaneously enhancing client satisfaction and interactivity. 

RPA’s role in healthcare as COVID-19 looms on 

Several industries are picking up RPA as RPA goes beyond adopter’s expectations not just with regards to the healthy rate of ROI (Return on Investment), but in addition, also with regards to enabling compliance (92%), improved quality levels and accuracy (90%) or enhanced staff productivity (86%).  

According to research carried out by McKinsey and Company, the healthcare domain had a 4/10ths technical potential for automation. It also mentioned that RPA as an emergent tech will revolutionize healthcare and create between 350 billion US$ and 410 billion US$ value in the next four years.  

Last year, as the scenario internationally swiftly changed from business as usual to making adaptations required for a pandemic, RPA is already being deployed to speed up operations within the healthcare domain, enabling organizations and professionals to handle the furore as a consequence of COVID-19.  

In this blog, AIHubSpot talks about some of the challenges faced by the healthcare industry in the present environment: 

The primary reason for these issues is due to organizations being reliant on the manual labor of staff members with regards to paperwork and the conversion of written documentation into an electronic format. Maintaining these electronic records manually needs even more time input by staff members, therefore giving up face-time that could be best spent with patients, who actually need dynamic attention. This scenario is one where RPA springs up into action to streamline things, and is of great assistance by managing large amounts of data simultaneously, recording a large amount of files and data, maintaining a check on the operation of a healthcare unit’s back-office and front-office support functions, and other such tasks that appear tedious and boring for most individuals.  

The Approach 

Adaptation to evolution, in terms of technology, is not as straightforward as it first appears. A person is required to delve into deeper knowledge of those technologies. They need to get a feel for, and comprehend how it functions, evaluate the positives and drawbacks, there are various, assorted tasks. Taking into account pressing requirements, it is simple to understand that implementation and utilization of the RPA technologies within the healthcare domain are of vital importance. Therefore, the measures needed for its application must be instated immediately.  

Aside from the benefits of the technology, it is obvious that it is expensive, and therefore, out of reach for many developing and under-developed markets. Governments the world over should take the onus upon themselves to furnish the desired funds for the healthcare industries to adequately equip themselves, at least the ones which are not privately owned. There is also a need for governments to monitor and evaluate the ways in which these technologies are used, in order to achieve some form of compliance.  

Simultaneously, businesses must be diligent and carry out a cost-benefit analysis and proper ROI (Return on Investment) calculations prior to deployment of RPA in order to obtain the most advantages from it. Choosing the correct candidate for automation also plays a key role. 

In addition, matters become simpler when we begin from the simplest and work our ways towards the more complex. The same strategy is key with regards to the implementation of RPA.  

Typical RPA use cases within the healthcare domain 

RPA in conjunction with AI (Artificial Intelligence) has the capability to revolutionize the healthcare domain. RPA can be deployed in nearly all sectors of the healthcare domain – regardless of whether we’re dealing with hospitals, patient care, medical imaging, and diagnostics, R&D, or insurance and claims administration. 

Few stereotypical use cases in which RPA has proved its usefulness by enhancing patient care are: 

1. Making patient appointment scheduling more accessible 
2. Hastening up the settlement of accounts. 
3. Streamlining discharge guidelines.  
4. Effective administration with regards to claims. 
5. Enhancing treatment cycles. 

Cumulatively, we can observe that the robotic process automation is going to be a mainstay in the healthcare industry for the years to come. Without question, RPA has already been deployed in several parts of the planet, but implementation must be universal. This is vital as the analytics of patient data can provide breakthroughs to medical personnel in terms of their approach and the strategies that they use. Greater connectedness within the healthcare community implies greater knowledge of conditions, and how quickly we can act. Where nations are presently facing a dearth of healthcare personnel in this current scenario, RPA should minimize time take in regular activities, enhance business and staff efficiency, and eradicate error, particularly human error while enhancing the overall patient experience, providing more comfort being one of the considerations of utmost importance. 

References 

https://jktech.com/insight/blogs/robotic-process-automation-in-healthcare-the-need-of-the-hour/