Readers Write: The Impact Intelligent Automation Can Have on Healthcare Costs

The Impact Intelligent Automation Can Have on Healthcare Costs
By Krishna Kurapati

Krishna Kurapati is founder and CEO of QliqSOFT of Dallas, TX.

RPA stands for robotic process automation. RPA uses technology to automate repetitive human interactions with a computing system. In other words, instead of a human clicking a button over and over to generate a desired outcome, the system automatically connects and completes the stipulated work process, eliminating significant amounts of manual steps and time for the care team.

A similar approach applies to robotic workflow automation, where a chatbot can automate manual and repetitive tasks between a care team member and a patient. For instance, in healthcare administrative and clinical support tasks, the end-to-end steps include reminding a patient of an appointment, sending them digital forms to complete before the visit, automating patient check-in, and reinforcing instructions after the visit. Each task’s workflow comprises a number of work processes to gather, upload the patient’s information to an electronic health record (EHR) system, and to communicate with and guide the patient.

To illustrate, let’s examine the case of patient intake: Today, the office staff creates a paper clipboard and shares it with the patient on arrival, who takes five to 15 minutes to complete the paperwork. Staff then looks up the patient record, scans and uploads the requisite forms to the EHR, and checks the patient in. Humans can be removed entirely from this sequence of steps with RPA and chatbots, which automate the workflow to capture and process the requisite patient data to meet clinical and billing purposes.

The benefits of intelligent automation in healthcare

Faced with a never-ending need for reporting and data entry, healthcare organizations must manage high volumes of administrative duties. A recent study found that the average employee spends 60 hours per month on easily automatable tasks, making healthcare an ideal use of RPA to digitize and scale manual, routine processes. The upshot is dramatically reduced labor costs while optimizing workforce usage for lower costs.

In a January 2023 paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research titled “The Potential Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Healthcare Spending,” the authors calculated that hospitals employing AI-enabled use cases could achieve total annual run-rate net savings of $60 billion to $120 billion (roughly 4% to 10% of total costs for hospitals) within the next five years using today’s technologies, without sacrificing quality or access. The Academy projected that 60% of clinical workflows can be automated through AI, including bots, signifying untapped potential in new revenue and cost reduction.

The role intelligent automation will play in transforming healthcare

Digital health is about delivering care and managing data electronically. Unfortunately, many patient experiences at healthcare systems and practices are handled through traditional communications, including paper transfer, phone calls, snail mail, and fax. This can lead to disconnected patient communication, misdiagnosis, medical errors, waste, and poor quality care. Digital capabilities help providers, innovators, payers, and other stakeholders come together collaborating in an agile, more communicative way to solve problems, overcome scalability limitations, empower patients, improve efficiencies, and speed up throughput.

Once digital infrastructure and capabilities are built, the robotic process automation sits on top to automate workflows. The conjoining of digital and RPA accelerates and scales processes and elevates innovation to create a new standard for the patient experience.

Current use of intelligent automation

Automation started in revenue cycle management processes and is relatively new to the clinical side of healthcare, where the initial focus is processing and management of large quantities of paper into the EMR or content management systems.

Although automation is now happening on the clinical side, it’s not yet well adopted. The most common focus areas are patient communication regarding appointment reminders, appointment scheduling, patient intake, billing, procedure readiness, documentation management, and evidenced-based content for patient education.

The future state of intelligent automation in healthcare

Automation’s ability to simplify healthcare is limited only by our imagination. The cost of labor has skyrocketed to 64% of total operating costs, creating new pressure to reexamine workflow and adopt automation. Healthcare has two broad categories where automation can be of service:

• Eliminating work by automating existing manual, repetitive administrative tasks staff are doing today.
• Supporting automated communication and monitoring needs not possible today because of staffing limitations, such as readmission prevention.

I expect intelligent automation to play a larger role in healthcare for years to come. The time is now to blend clinical and business efficiencies to improve operations and provide relief to overworked and understaffed healthcare professionals.