Patients use many different words to describe their experience with healthcare services, and “efficient” is rarely one of them. More commonly, the patient experience with healthcare providers is cumbersome, bureaucratic, and paperwork-laden.
Given what’s at stake, from patient health and safety to regulatory compliance, it’s understandable that healthcare organizations want to dot their i’s and cross their t’s. But what if you could create a more efficient healthcare practice while improving patient experiences and delivering better healthcare outcomes? And what if you could do all of that while lowering administrative costs?
By harnessing powerful modern technology—healthcare automation—you could transform your practice’s internal operations and create a more meaningful, positive patient experience.
In this article, we’ll show you how. We’ll discuss common types of healthcare automation, explore how much time automation can save, and examine five real examples of automation in healthcare.
Automation is the use of software tools to complete repetitive manual tasks. Increasingly, automation is using modern technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to further its reach and improve its ability to work on complex tasks.
Below is a look at the most common types of automation used in healthcare today.
Administrative work is the most obvious use case for healthcare automation.
The heavy administrative burden on healthcare practices is part of what makes many of them so inefficient, and automation is in a prime position to change that.
Some of the tasks healthcare automation can take care of include:
Automation, especially when coupled with AI, can support a number of diagnostic-related tasks.
AI algorithms can interpret radiology, pathology, and dermatology images to assist in identifying anomalies and making diagnoses.
Online symptom checkers and chatbots are also helpful automated tools that can guide patients through preliminary assessments before they see a healthcare provider, leading to more efficient in-person visits.
The management of patient medication is another important task that automation can support.
Automated dispensing machines, for example, can reduce human error in hospitals and pharmacies while minimizing labor costs. Similarly, prescription reminders and requests can be easily programmed using automation, ensuring timely patient refills.
Healthcare automation even has a role to play in the ongoing monitoring and support of patients. Some examples include the following:
It’s clear, at least from an economic standpoint, that the benefits of automation have a huge impact on healthcare systems. In 2022, the healthcare automation market was valued at $34.5 billion, with a projected value of $80.28 billion by 2032.
At a practical level, automation technologies are a huge timesaver. In one hospital, healthcare professionals spend 80% less time on data-related administrative tasks after implementing a healthcare automation software tool. This is a huge win when physicians report spending an average of four hours a day on records, from manual data entry to scrolling to find the health information they need.
Automation also has promise for healthcare even when applied outside the practice. Consider, for example, that the U.S. Department of Transportation reports that around 94% of traffic accidents occur due to human error. As automation is integrated into the transport realm—from self-driving cars to variable road speeds—we can expect to see fewer incidents and, as a result, fewer serious injuries related to traffic accidents.
So how much time could your practice save by implementing healthcare automation? That depends, of course, on where you implement it. The following real-life examples show how healthcare providers can leverage automation to save time on admin work.
EHR systems are a prime place to start when you’re looking to reap the benefits of automation.
Take Practice Better’s EHR automation features, for example, which allow you to:
By automating some administrative aspects of EHR maintenance, healthcare providers can reclaim lost time and avoid burnout. This lets them refocus their efforts on activities like continuing education to help achieve better patient outcomes.
Scheduling appointments can be a huge time-suck, at least when done manually.
Picture this: Your client messages you on Monday to request a session for Thursday at 2 p.m. You message back to let them know that the slot is full, but you can do the same time on Friday. They reply on Tuesday, saying they are away for a long weekend and asking if you can do Wednesday. You don’t see the message until the next day, and by then, it’s too late.
This is an all-too-common problem that Practice Better’s smart scheduling can solve. With smart scheduling, you can empower clients to self-book a time in your calendar based on your availability. If their preferences change, the patient can return to the portal and select a new time, provided the change request is within your set parameters, such as requiring more than 24 hours’ notice.
You can also reduce no-shows by scheduling automated reminders and turn new clients into stakeholders by requiring up-front payments.
Automated messaging is another way to eliminate some recurring administrative work. For instance, some EHR platforms allow you to send auto-welcome messages to patients after they set up an account.
Another effective use of this type of automation is programming auto-replies. Say a client messages your healthcare facility or individual practice. An automated business process will send a confirmation that you’ve received their message and will reply when you can.
Patient surveys are critical for understanding clients’ feelings about their experience and capturing insights regarding improvements you can make.
However, sending out surveys can easily become just another item on a to-do list that never gets ticked off. An easy workaround is to use a solution like Doctible’s healthcare marketing platform to send surveys immediately after an appointment booking is closed, while patients’ experiences are top of mind.
Billing is an inescapable administrative task; if you don’t send out invoices, you don’t get paid. But none of us got into this line of work to spend all day creating invoices or sending follow-up emails. The good news is that you can automate many aspects of the patient billing cycle.
With Practice Better’s billing system, for example, you can:
So far, we’ve explored how automation can improve the lives of healthcare providers and their clients today. But what about two, five, or even 10 years from now?
Here are some advancements we can expect from healthcare automation as the future becomes the present.
As AI continues to develop and, perhaps more importantly, as humans learn to trust and rely on it for even more critical decisions, we’ll likely see it play a more important part in diagnostics and predictive decision-making.
For example, AI could analyze patient history, genomics, and lifestyle factors to predictively diagnose potential future health issues. It could also provide recommendations for changes or treatments that can prevent illnesses and diseases.
Already, systems like IBM Watson Health and Google DeepMind’s Health AI are pushing the envelope of diagnostics in fields such as radiology, pathology, and ophthalmology.
Wearable devices like smartwatches and biosensors are another area of interest. These devices can deliver real-time health data, and integrating these tools with healthcare provider systems enables remote monitoring and data-driven care management.
As the reliability of the data these devices extract improves and consumer adoption of these devices increases, we’ll likely see more of these integrations develop.
Automation helps practitioners build patient care plans quickly and efficiently. The problem is that these are often broad-stroke plans that fail to take into account a lot of individualized health data or preferences. AI-driven automation is likely to change this.
Healthcare providers will be able to use AI systems to assess large data sets, including electronic patient records and wearable device data, and then produce highly personalized care plans nearly instantly.
Automation could dynamically adjust these patient treatment protocols by, for example, changing rehabilitation exercises based on progress tracking.
Companies like Tempus already use artificial intelligence to personalize cancer treatment recommendations based on genetic markers.
There’s a strong probability that automation will continue to take on more administrative tasks healthcare practitioners currently complete.
For example, natural language processing (NLP) could be used to further automate medical transcription and EHR data entry. Entire conversations could be recorded, transcribed, and stored in the client’s health records. AI and NLP could quickly turn these long-form conversations into easily digestible bullet-point notes.
Intelligent automation systems are set to transform the healthcare industry. Healthcare automation solutions can eliminate time-consuming manual tasks, help medical professionals maintain HIPAA compliance, and streamline workflows to save time and improve quality of care.
Practice Better, our holistic EHR platform for health and wellness professionals, is packed with helpful automation features to simplify healthcare processes. With Practice Better, you can automate repetitive tasks like Google review requests, appointment reminders, and payment processing, helping you lower costs, improve operational efficiency, and enhance patient satisfaction.
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