The Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation polled frontline workers in April 2021 and revealed, ”3 out of 10 healthcare workers are thinking of changing professions.” While this may sound surprising, it makes total sense. Nearly half (49%) of healthcare workers reported they had suffered burnout in 2020, while 43% reported feelings of work overload. And it’s not just the clinical staff. Since 2013, the average hospital has turned over 85.2% of its workforce! Healthcare employees often work long hours to keep up with administrative tasks. About a third of every dollar in healthcare is spent on administrative burdens such as logging into multiple systems, tedious manual documentation, and delays in reimbursement. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can deliver substantial and sustainable value, by automating activities that are manual, rule-based, and repetitive.
Implementing an RPA initiative to ease healthcare workloads is easier than you might think and can assist in optimizing business processes.
Involve the Right Stakeholders
Having the right buy-in from external and internal stakeholders and leadership cannot be overstated. It’s important to share an aligned vision and performance expectation. Leadership is always impressed by the outcomes of a successful RPA initiative, turning many who were previously “on the fence,” into cheerleaders for applying automation to additional areas. PwC estimates that “45% of work activities could be automated, and this automation would save $2 trillion in global workforce costs.” Some of the greatest benefits of RPA are the ease of deployment, scalability and speed, and the positive impact on ROI, with immediate cost-saving results. Addressing upstream process improvements has a magnified impact on downstream steps.
Set Clear Objectives
Getting started with an RPA initiative involves identifying the right processes and use cases to result in clear benefits and a fast ROI. An RPA initiative can remove the manual data burden from revenue cycle management teams by adding a layer of efficiency to the revenue cycle process, ensuring accuracy and eliminating duplication in time, effort, and documentation. This empowers people, allowing them to focus on higher priority tasks that require a human skillset. An RPA initiative can move seamlessly from one tool to the next, streamlining processes, and eliminating multiple steps throughout the healthcare ecosystem.
Design, Test, and Deploy
The best results are achieved when the initiative is designed to work like the human staff, so it’s important to align workflows. At Boston Software Systems, we’ve been doing this successfully for 30+ years. We’ve worked with every EHR system and are completely healthcare-centric. Whether it’s a revenue cycle project, supply chain initiative, COVID-19 specific, or telehealth, we work with every client to strategize the right project and achieve the desired objectives. We’ll help you every step of the way to ensure that your projects are successful. Our healthcare experienced project teams will deliver a sound transition plan and faster use of these new tools.
COVID-19 Use Cases
Boston WorkStation helped #bridgethegaps for telehealth providers, staff, and work queues during COVID-19. A process that previously took 5 FTEs, working on three shifts, manually entering data from each patient into the system was automated, allowing the organization to re-allocate 4 of the FTEs to higher-value work, and only keep one in an oversight role. Every order entered was complete and the communication process loop closed. The automation was quickly scaled to over 200 providers, across mobile testing sites, throughout the city of Jacksonville and across Northeast Florida.
In addition, RPA removed the barriers to COVID-19 vaccine administration for multiple health systems by checking patient eligibility in the EHR, entering treatments and submitting accurate reimbursement information via the HRSA web portal, eliminating multiple manual steps, and speeding the reimbursement process for providers.
Why Boston Software Systems?
Healthcare workers are the greatest asset we have in the health system. To effectively support them, we must make it easier for them to focus on patients, not paperwork. RPA initiatives reduce the effects of burnout by optimizing healthcare efficiencies and reducing the barriers to productivity. In doing so, we can minimize some of the effects of burnout, so that everyone wins.
Give us a call, we won’t take up much of your time. Spend 30 minutes to find out what can go live in < 30 days. Manual processes can be quickly reduced, creating a happier staff and long-term transformational changes to healthcare processes.