5 Must-Know Benefits of Healthcare Workflow Automation

Key Takeaways

• Administrative errors are caused due to mismanaged health data. Manual data entry gives rise to administrative errors in hospitals and clinics. Healthcare workflow automation helps to minimize these errors.
• Primary care providers need an average of 26.7 hours to carry out administrative work and offer patient care simultaneously. Such a situation leaves zero room for rest and results in burnout. Automation reduces time spent on data entry, which can be used for addressing patient needs and care.
• As per the data, around one-third of the money can be saved by automating billing operations. Solutions such as automating billing data capture and sharing can help streamline healthcare payment workflow and increase productivity.

Healthcare workflow automation Healthcare organizations are loaded with innumerable tasks such as report generation, filling forms for patients, scheduling appointments, assisting patients, handling medical records, and more. These tasks are cumbersome and take a significant amount of time, which otherwise can be spent on other essential work. So, to increase the efficiency of healthcare workflow, certain tasks can be automated by implementing AI and machine learning technologies.

As per a survey conducted in 2020, almost 90 percent of large healthcare organizations had an AI and automation strategy. This puts them ahead of the competition and also enhances patient care.

Key Benefits of Healthcare Workflow Automation

1. Minimal Risk of Errors

Errors can be grouped into two types: medical and administrative. Medical errors are caused by prescribing medicines, and surgeries, inaccurate clinical decision-making, and not following proper dispensing rules. Additionally, the failure of patients to adhere to follow-up routines and timely check-ups can lead to medication errors.

Administrative errors are caused due to mismanaged health data. Manual entry of data gives rise to administrative errors in hospitals and clinics. Medical errors are one of the topmost causes of death in the USA, and healthcare workflow automation helps to minimize these errors. Additionally, a minimal error rate enhances patient safety and increases trust between patients and healthcare providers.

2. Decrease in Medical Staff Burnout

According to a study, primary care providers need an average of 26.7 hours to carry out administrative work and offer patient care simultaneously. Such a situation leaves zero room for rest, family time, and working on other things, and results in burnout. It eventually takes a toll on medical professionals and non-clinical staff. They tend to resist work, which eventually hampers productivity levels. It can also lead to mistakes that can harm patient safety and affect their medical careers.

For non-clinical staff, burnout can impact their memory, ability to think, and process information. So, to prevent burnout, healthcare workflow automation can be implemented. It processes and categorizes data automatically, so staff can find it easily. Automation reduces time spent on data entry, which can be used for addressing patient needs and care.

3. Enhanced Productivity

Healthcare organizations have begun to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks across varied verticals which are listed below.

1. Payment and Billing Operations

As per an article on mobihealthnews, out of the $765 billion spent on administrative work, $400 is spent on admin transactions that address billing and payment. It is estimated that around one-third of the money can be saved by automating the billing operations. Solutions such as automating billing data and sharing can help streamline healthcare payment workflow and increase productivity.

2. Managing Contact Center Operations

Healthcare organizations exchange tons of phone calls to answer inquiries, collaborate with hospital staff, and more. Mismanagement of these calls can directly impact patient engagement. It hampers ratings and there’s always a risk of information leakage. So, adopting NLP-based conversational tools and bots can help staff to manage their contact center operations. It saves nearly four minutes per call and 70 cents per interaction. It drives intelligent and effective healthcare communications, which results in better patient engagement and satisfaction.

3. Clinical Operations

The shortage of nurses and healthcare providers creates a gap in healthcare workflow. Providers and nurses are burdened with more patients than they could handle, leading to burnout and unbalanced clinical operations. Healthcare workflow automation can help to automate administrative work in places where there’s a shortage of medical staff, thus allowing them to focus on clinical operations. Also, machine learning and NLP tools can help to automate clinical documentation work, which otherwise is time-consuming. AI technology automates data analysis processes and provides useful insights to physicians for better clinical decisions.

4. Patient Admission and Discharge

Approvals are a major aspect of healthcare workflow as everything from documents, admissions, and readmissions, to discharge is signed by either administrative staff or physicians. With healthcare workflow automation, medical staff can approve patient discharge and admission in real-time. Automated approvals are easy to do and harder to forge, and they offer clear time-stamp documents. Processes during admission such as billing, registration, and insurance can be automated for smooth coordination between hospitals and patients.

5. Medical Staff Onboarding

A more distant benefit of healthcare workflow automation is medical staff onboarding and everything in between. With automation, new staff can wrap up their documentation faster. Things such as employee contracts, approvals, document exchange, understanding hospital policies, etc., all can be automated. It frees up time for new medical staff to build rapport with their colleagues, check hospital procedures, and understand their roles.

Additionally, staff data can be automatically collected and updated in the system, thus reducing the chances of human errors. The healthcare automation system can send out personal emails and messages to the new staff, to make them feel welcome and at ease.

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