What is Automation in Healthcare? 

Healthcare automation holds out the promise of reducing some of the issues brought on by the industry's protracted staffing shortages. Software used for automation completes mass quantities of repetitive tasks without human intervention. Healthcare organizations can use automation in a variety of ways, swapping out time-consuming manual tasks for simple technology. 

Examples of healthcare automation include: 

• Patient intake on the go 
• Chatbots or online chat 
• automated consent administration 
• Contactless registration 
• Registration via mobile 
• Benefits verification process  
• Online billing and payment that is automatic  
• schedule management software 
• appointment confirmation and reminders sent automatically 

Healthcare organizations can operate smoothly and effectively even with fewer employees thanks to automation.  

Why ought medical facilities to automate? 

The repetitive, time-consuming tasks that automation standardizes. Healthcare organizations can communicate with patients more frequently than they can with people because automation has unlimited capacity. 

Automated appointment reminders assist in lowering cancellations and no-shows. A pediatrics practice, for instance, saw a 43% drop-in no-show rates after implementing a digital patient check-in system. The check-in system enabled patients to complete registration paperwork online and automatically sent appointment confirmation and reminder messages.   

Even better, none of these jobs were any longer required of the staff:  

• To confirm appointments, call the patients. 
• Enter manually patient data that was written on paper forms into the intake system. 
• Scan and upload insurance cards and licenses by hand 
• Verify your insurance information by calling. 
• Process copays by hand 

Administrative staff now have more time to focus on tasks that call for deeper patient communication and critical thinking, freed from data entry and cold calling. Automation virtually eliminates the possibility of staff error in the healthcare industry and guarantees that appointment confirmations and reminders are sent out on time. Additionally, it enables staff to start up patient engagement programs like text message outreach and post-visit surveys.  

Core benefits of automation in healthcare 

Healthcare organizations gain numerous advantages from automating some processes due to the adaptability and scalability of automation tools. Operational efficiency, employee productivity and motivation, and patient satisfaction have all improved. Here is a detailed explanation of how automation helps healthcare providers. 

Close hiring gaps. Healthcare providers lessen the burden of hiring to some extent by automating procedures like patient intake, payments, and scheduling. Providers can avoid the cost of finding, hiring, and training new employees if they are already working with a small staff. 

According to a report by Accenture, automation could help businesses save between $5 and $7 trillion between 2016 and 2025. It can complete the work of about 140 million full-time employees in the same amount of time. 

By purchasing software made specifically for the healthcare industry, healthcare organizations can share in those savings. Healthcare-specific automation tools have features like HIPAA-compliant chat messaging, EHR/PM platform integration, and strong governance, privacy, and security. 

Lessen employee burnout. An excessive workload and a lack of support are two of the main factors that contribute to burnout. Additionally, a day of repetitive work demands more energy, increasing the likelihood of fatigue. You have valuable staff who lack the time, energy, and motivation to deliver a high-quality patient experience when you combine multiple COVID-19-related stressors with them. 

  By eliminating tedious tasks, automating manual processes reduces workload, which helps to reduce stress and fatigue. Patient experiences are improved by more motivated, effective employees.  

Boost front desk productivity. Your front desk employees are the first people your patients interact with or see. Front office staff are empowered by automation in healthcare because it frees them from laborious manual tasks. Providers can save staff hours by automating just appointment confirmations and reminders. While saving staff time from data entry and increased phone calls, online appointments and mobile registration give patients more control over their care. 

Additionally, automation is scalable: without any additional effort on the part of the staff, call volume increases as the number of patients increases. Front office employees complete more work in less time with the aid of automation software. This enables them to concentrate more on running the office and creating plans to raise patient satisfaction.  

Boost patient engagement that is "real." 

Automation of healthcare procedures frees up staff time so they can concentrate on enhancing the patient experience. 

Digital patient engagement is made possible by automation, but interpersonal interactions still form the foundation of healthcare. Patients who are actively involved in their care and have access to the resources they need to achieve and maintain health. Improvements in safety and quality can result from increased patient engagement, which can also improve health outcomes. 

Your patients need to know everything from how to get ready for an appointment to when they need to schedule a follow-up visit, so they have questions that can't be answered with automated messages. Patients may be reluctant to seek assistance when front-desk staff are visibly stressed or overwhelmed because they play a crucial role in explaining complicated processes.  

The good news is that automation can relieve employees of monotonous manual tasks. Staff will have more time and energy to support patients and ensure that they feel valued and cared for if this administrative burden is reduced. 

Boost patient experience and satisfaction. 

Excellent customer service is provided by savvy businesses. To attract and keep patients, shrewd healthcare providers must adopt similar strategies. Additionally, since patient satisfaction ratings affect payment, providers are further motivated to enhance the patient experience. 

Automated post-visit patient satisfaction surveys give providers a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, which can help spur change. For instance, surveys conducted by Gwinnett Center Medical Associates, a primary care clinic in Lawrenceville, Georgia, revealed that some procedures exceeded their allotted time and created bottlenecks in the waiting area. The clinic improved its clinical workflow as a result, and scores rose. 

The results of surveys can also be used by providers to streamline processes, raise CAHPS rankings, and participate in other value-based incentive schemes. 

Increase quickness. Workflow and business process automation increases agility, or the capacity to act quickly when necessary. Staff members are informed by automated notifications when medical equipment in the hospital needs maintenance. Technology can also monitor staff availability and patient wait times.  

Automation enhances security by alerting IT staff to network issues and, in some cases, by putting a fix in place. Automation maintains the safety and functionality of critical infrastructure in emergency situations like blackouts. 

Reminder: Inquire about the vendor's disaster recovery plan when doing vendor research. A disaster recovery program that describes how a natural disaster may affect systems that contain protected health information (PHI), how it will function after a disaster, and how it will restore PHI is required by HIPAA for third-party vendors.  

Make scheduling easier. In addition to increasing front office productivity, online appointments and self-scheduling offer patients the convenient, anytime service they demand. Patients who can't call during business hours can schedule and modify appointments at their convenience thanks to self-scheduling, which is a significant benefit. Patients automatically receive a confirmation after their appointment is scheduled or their request is submitted, and the data is automatically added to the dashboard so that staff can monitor and manage it. 

Maintain a full schedule. Appointment cancellations result in gaps, which cost doctors and clinicians money and valuable time. Without the need for staff to manage a waitlist, schedule management software automatically fills open slots with waiting patients. 

A text or email is sent to patients on the waitlist informing them that an earlier appointment time is available. When patients reply to accept the new time, they immediately get a confirmation.   

Use the proper cadence when sending appointment reminders. Typically, staff does not have the time to manually call, text, or email patients to confirm or remind them of their appointments. Utilizing the patient's preferred channel, providers can schedule a series of messages using appointment reminder software with automation. Without overtaxing staff, automated, customized notifications and reminders help decrease no-shows and cancellations.  

Because they can respond to questions in the privacy and comfort of their own homes rather than in a waiting area, patients benefit from digitization and automation in healthcare intake processes. 

Increase your knowledge of your patients' health. Patients frequently want to communicate with their healthcare professionals. It's simple to gather pertinent information about someone's health by using screening tools and patient-reported outcome (PRO) assessments. Automated delivery of these assessments can be used to gather additional information about value-based care models and to identify and close HEDIS care gaps.  

Examples include pre-appointment COVID-19 screening, the PHQ-9 depression questionnaire, the ASQ-3 pediatric questionnaire, social determinants of health screenings, and more. 

Conclusion  

Healthcare organizations can use new technology to revamp their operations even though automation in the industry is nothing new. Instead of necessitating a significant technological upgrade, these new automation solutions are relatively quick and simple to implement. 

Automation can begin with one task in one department for organizations that are just getting started. Providers can gradually grow in response to the demands of their organizations as teams become accustomed to new software and procedures. 

Healthcare providers can reduce the workload for overworked staff, increase productivity and efficiency, and realize significant cost savings by integrating software with automated patient appointment reminders, simple online scheduling, and other effective patient intake tools.