When faced with post-pandemic recovery, healthcare businesses require to clear a considerable backlog of care and paperwork and so adhering to stringent financial constraints. Smart automation, bringing together Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI), provides a solution to that hurdle. 

Smart automation software bots can function as a fourth variant of employee, functioning in harmony with the other three, permanent, pooled, and interim employees. They can assist the delivery of core goals and free up employees to concentrate on more value-added activity. 

An increasing number of healthcare businesses are augmenting employees with “fourth workers” to provide effective service transformation. As more healthcare organizations can quantify and socialize their achievements with smart automation, some businesses, specifically in the United Kingdom (UK), are forming national strategies around the deployment of bots. This will assist the healthcare organizations quicken up benefits realization through the sharing of best practices and reusability at scale. 

Businesses can begin small, see a quick return on investment, and plot their journey across one to two years with a high degree of confidence, on the basis of the work that has already been finished by colleagues across other businesses. 

New Ways of working and delivering care 

Healthcare businesses need to gear up and to restore services following the pandemic. And that implies hospital leaders must take steps to integrate new ways of working for clinical and infrastructure support staff to ensure quality care. 

Businesses can bring technology to bear, assisting staff with bots that can improve people’s skills and experience regardless of where they operate. Bots that operate directly with doctors can be integrated into a hospital’s functioning. A bot can gather patient details from several systems and present that data to a doctor via a single computer screen. Doctors can function in a more innovative, collaborative fashion with other healthcare items in real-time for the patient’s benefit, even when employees are remote employees. 

A bot can quicken and streamline historically manual procedures, considerably minimizing healthcare-related administrative time while assisting to upkeep a clinically safe process for all those concerned. For instance, one hospital encountered a challenge of manual processes and systems maintenance that consumed valuable patient time. Through automation of workflows with bots, the hospitals have maximized time for patient care, saving 4,000 management hours per year. 

Bots can save time and effort in other spheres as well while assisting to ensure healthcare providers have access to the supplies and utilities they require to furnish quality care. Take up another hospital. When the pandemic struck, there was a swift rise in patients at the hospital needing oxygen support. 

At that time, the procedure of surveying levels in the hospital’s oxygen tanks was performed manually. The hospital wished to free up employees accountable for that activity and make sure the hospital had consistent and precise readings that were readily available of the oxygen solutions. The answer? The first-of-its-kind bot for 24/7 monitoring of critical oxygen supply. In only a month after the bot’s deployment, a predicted 1,500 hours were provided back to staff members so that they could concentrate on other critical activities. And the information collected from the bot was 100% precise, eradicating any clinical risks. 

Integrating bots for the betterment of staff 

Healthcare staff employees have been under massive pressure since the pandemic started with escalating workloads staying a pressing concern. Bots can augment new and current employees to deliver repeatable, predictable results with a consistent level of service. By minimizing the administrative burden on employees, enterprises can improve efficiency, minimize expenditure, and drive down error rates. They can also furnish an improved level of care to employees, directly via wellness programs and indirectly through alleviation some of the tiresomely long hours that have been needed for too long. 

Making hospitals more competitive 

The pandemic also witnessed an unprecedented requirement to employ healthcare staff to provide core services. As an outcome, healthcare businesses are experiencing increased competition for very skilled employees and the new generation of talent who wish to work for the most innovative businesses. This is developing a competitive edge for those businesses that can take up smart automation to transform the methods in which they operate, specifically if they can demonstrate how innovative technology is being leveraged to deliver enhanced outcomes for employees and patients.