What Is Workflow Automation in Healthcare?
What is workflow automation?
Workflow automation is leveraging technology to allow repetitive workflows to be completed on their own. Workflow automation is used in almost every industry to raise efficiency levels, healthcare is no exception.
As systems have more data requirements and programs to keep up with, the importance of workflow in healthcare becomes ever more important to decrease human errors, reduce the amount of effort required, and increase capacity to treat patients.
What Role Does Artificial Intelligence Play in Workflow Automation?
The development of AI technologies including computer vision and machine learning has increased the capability of automating more complex tasks. Before the development of these technologies, workflow automation capabilities were reduced to simple tasks that could be done by robotic process automation. Today, even complex tasks such as appointment scheduling, revenue management, IT, inventory management, and client billing can be automated.
What Workflow Automation Benefits Can We Expect in Healthcare?
Already, workflow automation technology has the potential to completely overhaul your healthcare information management processes, reducing staff burnout, increasing revenue, and improving interoperability.
Healthcare workflow management has already been completely transformed by workflow automation technology. The benefits that come from this technology include less staff burnout, improved costs, improved interoperability, and increasing data security.
Less Burnt-Out Staff
Working in the healthcare industry, staff are typically exposed to repetitive workflow situations daily. The everyday stress eventually leads to burnout which increases costs, reduces patient satisfaction, and negatively impacts morale. Workflow automation reduces the time staff has to spend on manual repetitive workflows and frees up time for staff to spend tending to the needs of patients.
Improved Costs
Workflow automation can reduce costs without ever having to negotiate any supply costs or cut corners anywhere. Instead, workflow automation cuts cost by eliminating human errors, increasing capacity, and reducing the waste caused by operational inefficiencies.
Improves Interoperability
Healthcare relies on dozens of siloed programs and legacy systems. In a perfect world, these systems work with each other instead of independently. This perfect scenario can be achieved with the help of AI to automate the workflow that pulls and enters data from one program to the other.
Increased Data Security
Data security is a top concern for anyone in healthcare, this becomes especially relevant when implementing new technology. Workflow automation leads to an increase in data security by reducing human interaction.
Human contact and manual manipulations of the data are the largest privacy vulnerabilities to data. Reducing or eliminating human contact and manual manipulation of the data enhances the security of the data.
To continue learning about workflow automation in healthcare read our guide on Working Smarter with Healthcare Workflow Management Technology.