Since the pandemic began over three years ago, clinicians have been stretched to the limit. Burnout is an ongoing issue that is never adequately addressed in hospitals and health systems. With mental health issues soaring, technology vendors have a responsibility to support healthcare providers and administrative staff who are overburdened by not only the volume of tasks but the duplication of time and effort.
Smart Automation Can Help Streamline Tasks
By streamlining administrative tasks like appointment scheduling, billing, onboarding, credentialing, and record keeping, clinicians and staff are free to focus on higher value priorities like communication and patient care. Smart automation can play a significant role in reducing physician burnout and improving mental health by alleviating some of the administrative and repetitive tasks that contribute to stress and exhaustion. Here are a few examples of how Boston WorkStation can help:
Administrative Task Offloading
Boston WorkStation can handle many of the tedious, manual tasks that weigh down physicians and staff, like appointment scheduling, prescription renewals, lab results, and data migrations to disparate systems. This reduces the time physicians spend on paperwork, allowing them to concentrate less on documentation and delivery and more on patient care.
Electronic Health Record (EHR) Optimization
EHR systems can be optimized with automation to sort through and organize patient information, track changes, and assist in data entry. This streamlines workflows and prevents the frustration of dealing with cumbersome interfaces, disparate data silos, and duplicate documentation. Boston WorkStation can easily access information in one system, and complete the required documentation in the next system. This speeds the entire workflow process, and ensures that information is only recorded once, with errors eliminated by 98%.
Eligibility Check Automation
By automating eligibility checks, Boston WorkStation works just like a human would, yet without the time, duplication of effort, and errors. The automation logs into the Medicare/Medicaid websites, then proceeds to search for the patient by SSN and capture eligibility and liability status. It prints and saves the documentation. If necessary, it compares and contrasts the last eligibility status, and writes the differences in the report. Once reports are finished, Boston WorkStation sends them out. We recently completed this automation for a client who stated, “Thanks again for another great automation! I am passionate about saving time and making workflows as efficient as possible. We have saved 60 hours per month of staff time.”
Patient Tracking Automations
This is a fairly new concept for many hospitals, but by automating the tracking of patients as they move throughout the system in areas like the ED, Surgery, Endo, or Labs, everyone can know where they are in the process of things. This frees up staff and clinicians to better coordinate workflows, and keep everything (and everyone) moving. Boston WorkStation automates the workflow, so that it is transparent to users, yet any department or physician can easily access the information, or receive a report, without duplicating effort or delaying patient care. Early adopters of patient tracking automations say it improves throughput and workflow processes and in turn improves patient care. We’re happy to discuss our projects with you.
Reducing Repetition
Sadly, repetition is present in every health system. Every clinician and administrative staff routinely handles inquiries, claims, or follow-ups that can be handled by smart automation technology, reducing the need to duplicate time and effort. We see this a lot in revenue cycle systems which can have as many as 18 different portals to log into and retrieve information. Boston WorkStation cuts through the chaos, accessing the necessary information or connecting the data between two disparate systems, with no human toll.
Population Health Goals
Automation can analyze large datasets to identify trends and insights, helping physicians make informed decisions without spending extensive time on manual data review. Data-driven automation can positively reduce burnout levels, by supporting clinicians in their decision-making and making it easier for them to access large datasets without the administrative burden. By implementing Boston WorkStation in these ways, physicians are telling us their workloads become more manageable, leaving them with more time for patient interaction, self-care, and professional development.
Why Boston Software Systems?
When fatigue plagues healthcare, it takes the focus away from patients at critical moments, and creates additional demands that contribute to stress and burnout. Boston WorkStation allows healthcare staff to “work smarter,” by removing the barriers and roadblocks to connected care, and giving humans back their time. Give us a call. With 35 years of experience in creating healthcare “toolkits,” we understand the best projects to automate for a fast return in savings and a lasting boost in emotional well-being.