RPA in Healthcare: Role, Use Cases, Challenges & Trends

PUBLISHED

December 13, 2024

What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?

Robotic process automation (RPA) is a type of technology that primarily focuses on automating various processes, often to help human workers cut repetitive tasks and achieve faster completion. RPA employs software robots, or bots, to carry out tasks such as data entry and extraction, insurance claims processing, insurance verification, payroll calculations, document verification, employee onboarding, and many others. Robotic process automation enables healthcare organizations to automate many areas of their work, creating more time and space to help patients feel more comfortable and get better.

Understanding the Role of RPA in Healthcare

Robotic process automation in healthcare is not just about automating some repetitive tasks and saving money; RPA has the power to impact many areas of business operations, including not-so-obvious things like legal compliance. Let’s discuss some of the benefits that make RPA so critical in the context of healthcare:

Improved productivity

Robots can work without breaks around the clock. Therefore, healthcare workers won’t have to take up all of their time on time-consuming, repetitive, and difficult tasks; instead, they can focus on providing high-quality healthcare and delegate some of their tasks to RPA solutions.

Increased patient satisfaction

Patients have different kinds of experiences when they use healthcare services: before, during, and after the service has been administered. The before and after experiences heavily depend on how fast the patient was assisted and how personalized and helpful the assistance was. With RPA, it’s possible to shorten the amount of time needed to make an appointment, answer questions, schedule doctor visits, and other activities that often involve long wait times.

Personalized patient care

By automating some in-house processes and workflows, healthcare organizations can focus on providing more personalized patient care. Combined with other technologies like artificial intelligence, this makes it possible to create fully personalized experiences built around patient preferences and schedules.

Better accuracy

When it comes to healthcare, many tasks are very error-prone and require a lot of attention to be done properly. For example, manual data entry is not only a time-consuming activity but also very demanding, with a high risk of mistakes. With healthcare RPA, it’s possible to mitigate errors and inaccuracies.

Compliance with industry regulations

Almost any bit of information healthcare organizations put out into the world must comply with regional laws and regulations. Anything that deviates from that compliance can be harmful to the organizations, the healthcare professionals who work there, and the patients. RPA systems can automate such processes as data collection, validation, regulations monitoring, MLR approvals, and risk assessment, helping companies handle healthcare data more safely and ensuring that the company’s actions align with industry standards and don’t break laws.

What RPA Capabilities Help to Improve Healthcare Operations?

When you think of healthcare robotic process automation, imagine it as something that can shaped to your needs. This is possible thanks to the vast array of benefits and solutions the RPA has to offer, including:

Workflow orchestration;
Data analytics;
Data entry and extraction;
Automatic reminders and notifications;
Audits;
Compliance checks;
Financial reconciliation;
Reporting;
Hyperautomation;
Automated email marketing;
Tracking of medical equipment and supplies.

The RPA functionalities include a wide range of features, such as revenue cycle management, automated email marketing, healthcare lead generation, and much more.

TOP Healthcare Automation Trends Shaping the Future of Medicine

Technologies in the healthcare sector continue to evolve and advance, forcing the industry to change and adjust to the new age. Here are some of the biggest automation trends that are reshaping healthcare as we speak:

Tehelealth

The use of telehealth, also commonly referred to as telemedicine, has been on the rise since the Covid-19 pandemic. Telehealth is a set of practices and technologies that allow for long-distance patient-doctor communication and treatment. According to McKinsley, 55% of patients are more satisfied with virtual visits than face-to-face appointments. Thanks to telehealth, more people now have immediate access to healthcare, which is why it’s likely that this trend is here to stay for a long time and develop into something even more impactful.

The Internet of Medical Things

The Internet of Medical Things, which is a term derived from the Internet of Things, is a network of medical devices that are connected to the Internet and provide both patients and doctors to virtually connect. TIoMT can be a part of telehealth, but it also encompasses a huge variety of devices, such as wearables, in-hospital devices, smart pills, remote monitoring systems, and others. The Internet of Medical Things will continue advancing, automating repetitive tasks and improving patient monitoring and care.

3D printing

3D printing technology has quickly grown from just a few hospitals using it in 2010 to more than a hundred in 2019 and over four hundred in 2022. Right now, this number is likely to be more than five hundred. 3D printing can help develop and manufacture custom tools for surgeries and treatments, personalized devices, and even prosthetics or implants. There are countless opportunities in 3D printing, and it will continue to grow and evolve.

Artificial intelligence

AI has been one of the biggest trends of the past couple of years in healthcare, life sciences, and other industries. Right now, 94% of healthcare organizations use artificial intelligence or machine learning in some way. AI can significantly improve patient experience, reducing costs, providing faster access, increasing employee satisfaction, and influencing the lives of patients and healthcare providers.

The potential of RPA in Healthcare

The opportunities for using RPA in healthcare are quite extensive. Here are some ways in which healthcare organizations can use robotic process automation:

Remote patient monitoring

With the help of robotic process automation, patients who live in rural areas or have medical conditions that limit their mobility will be able to get care from anywhere. In the future, patients will likely be monitored remotely, and robots will do most of the job by constantly recording and analyzing the data provided.

Data management

RPA might become fully responsible for storing, verifying, and updating patient records in the future. Here is the thing: data lies at the heart of healthcare. It’s impossible to provide good care without assessing the patient first. However, acquiring, properly storing, and safeguarding medical data is a time-consuming and error-prone task. Automating it is a huge step toward enhanced patient care.

Inventory management

One of the most important responsibilities of any medical facility is to provide high-quality treatment and medicine, as well as use proper high-quality equipment to carry out patient care. And even though hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare organizations are doing a great job managing inventory, they surely need a hand with all those things they need to keep track of. This is where RPA software can help, fully automating such processes as ordering supplies, managing equipment, tracking orders, and optimizing resources.

Key Challenges of RPA in Healthcare Faced by Organizations

RPA is not a silver bullet, and there are some challenges a company must be prepared for if they are about to step on the path to digital transformation and automation:

Change resistance

For many healthcare workers, the introduction of any type of automation tool might seem scary, and this feeling is easy to understand. Some might worry that their work will soon be replaced by robots, while others fear that unnecessary changes will interrupt their routine, preventing them from achieving the desired results. Every healthcare organization that plans to introduce robotic process automation should prepare its workers for it, providing all the necessary educational materials and assistance in case of difficulties or questions.

Outdated systems and workflows

Automation requires thorough preparation and a certain degree of digital maturity before it can be integrated into the company’s process. The problem is that many healthcare organizations run on legacy software or outdated IT infrastructures that are not conducive to automation.

Cybersafety concerns

In healthcare, even the smallest security mishap can lead to serious problems. Automation is great, but is the chosen solution safe? Will patient records be protected? Are there any risks of data breaches? It’s crucial to consider all these factors before implementing RPA, as it will guarantee the safety of your employees and customers. You need to be sure your automation partner can design and implement a secure infrastructure for your patient data.

Lack of expertise

Robotic process automation in healthcare is a relatively new trend that many companies have yet to embrace or even consider. This is why it might be hard to find the right talent, making experts in RPA extremely valuable and harder to find, at least for now. The demand for specialists in this field continuously grows, but there are just not enough educational platforms and opportunities for those willing to study.

High cost

Automation of healthcare processes comes with a price tag some might consider unreasonable. It’s not just about the cost of the RPA solution but also the expenses associated with retraining staff, changing workflows, optimizing resources, etc. To mitigate this problem, at least in the short term, we recommend first selecting the processes that are the easiest to automate while being fairly impactful. By making these first automation steps fast and relatively simple, you’ll start to see your first ROI quickly, while you move on to automating more and more complex processes.

RPA Use Cases in Healthcare

RPA implementation will sooner or later become a necessary step for most, if not all healthcare providers. Here are some examples of how you can leverage RPA tools to enhance some of the critical processes within your organization:

Online patient scheduling

Most companies are ready to facilitate appointment scheduling that takes place completely online, and with RPA software, it’s possible to implement it without any complications. According to recent studies, about 80% of patients would rather choose a healthcare provider that offers online scheduling.

Patient onboarding

During all steps of receiving treatment, from coming to a medical facility for the first time to discharge, both patients and healthcare providers have to deal with huge volumes of data. To ease this process, healthcare organizations can use RPA to automatically upload and sort patient forms, allowing HCPs to later access this information in just a couple of seconds.

Digital patient surveys

Ensuring that every individual feels safe and cared for is one of the priorities for all hospitals and clinics. With RPA tools, patient feedback can be gathered without having to manually write messages or read through the responses—it can all be done automatically, providing HCPs with all the insights they need.

Billing

Medical billing comprises various steps, such as data entry, claims processing, insurance eligibility verification, and multiple others. Automating each stage of the process ensures that healthcare organizations and providers will be fairly compensated without long wait times.

Content automation

Many businesses are already automating the content creation process by delegating some of the content-related tasks to different software and platforms. For example, some companies use pre-approved templates to quickly create content on the go, while others use automation to edit and proofread content in just a few minutes.

Final Thoughts

From data sharing to improving clinical outcomes, robotic process automation can assist the healthcare industry in many ways. However, it is not a universal solution. To fulfill its role and help your organization automate its workflows and processes, it’s crucial to take all the necessary steps beforehand and properly prepare for the RPA implementation. It is also critical to choose the right processes to automate, start with small and impactful things, and progress to larger, more complex processes. As a result, you will achieve a level of digital maturity and process automation that cuts redundant spending and delivers exceptional patient outcomes.

If you are ready to start your journey in digital transformation, consider the Viseven team as your trusted digital transformation partner. Schedule a free consultation now to get answers to all your questions.