healthcare, Robot Process Automation

5 Ways RPA is Changing The Healthcare Sector

Written by Darpan BegdaiOctober 27, 2020

More and more firms across different industries are adopting RPA solutions to catch up with this fast-paced technological world. According to a recent Deloitte RPA Survey Report, most organizations opting for RPA solution said that improved productivity and increased customer satisfaction was their key concern and prioritize. The survey also showed that out of 400 respondents, more than 50 percent had already adopted the automation solution and around 72 percent are expected to start the automation journey within the next financial year.

Quoting the Survey Report, “RPA exceeds adopters’ expectations not only when it comes to the rapid rate of ROI increase, but also when it comes to facilitating compliance (92%), improved quality and accuracy (90%), or improved productivity (86%).”

The healthcare industry also reaps the benefits of automation solutions. A report by Healthcare Leaders stated that three out of four hospitals and health systems have CEOs cited a reduction in total cost incurred and increased efficiency as two of their top financial priorities and concerns. The healthcare industry has been looking for improved efficiency, reduced costs, and automation of manual and repetitive tasks.

From fixing appointments, scheduling for doctors and other medical staff, generating and updating patient’s prescriptions and records to generating bills, and collecting payments, a hospital has to deal with many operational and administrative works, which are mostly handled by humans-employees. Slight irregularities or delays in any of these have a ripple effect on all other activities, which in the case of a hospital can lead to some serious human damage.

All these very-likely issues make the healthcare industry turn from human-employees to automated-employees and look for Robotic Processing Automation solutions.

Here are five reasons that will definitely make you want to adopt RPA solutions, at the first possible chance

1. Managing Insurance Claims

Data tells that around 91.2 percent of Americans are covered under health insurance schemes. This indicates the bulk of processes involved in completing the claim procedure, as well as a considerable amount of time. Also, manual handling of claims can go wrong directly impacting the healthcare organization. RPA helps to optimize information and records for processing the insurance claim. It guarantees 100 percent accuracy in filing the claim, filtering relevant information, and making the correct payment on time. Automation also reduces the time taken in the process as the robotic-employee works 24*7*365 without any tired. With the RPA solution, the average time taken to process a transaction gets reduced from 12 to 2 minutes.

According to a study undertaken by KPMG as much as 30-40 percent of insurance claims don’t comply with official demands. RPA tools can easily identify such claims, and save unnecessary payments.

2. Maintaining and Updating Patient Records

Managing patients’ records and updating their database is the most crucial task in any hospital. It is a tedious and regular job, which requires a time-to-time update and accuracy. A minor mistake in updating patients’ records will result in a major mishap for the patients and as well as takes a toll on the hospital’s goodwill. Erroneous or delayed records are mostly the outcome of the callousness of human-employees. A programmed employee who runs on an algorithm has an advantage over humans when it comes to proper record keeping.

3. Optimizing Appointment Scheduling

While fixing an appointment it is important that the availability of doctors matches the requirements of the patients. This requires a proper run-through of the doctors’ schedules and their availability. RPA provides an easy solution to this. It fixes appointment schedules to the patient according to their needs and the availability of a doctor. Once the appointment is booked, it updates in the database and removes that appointment slot. RPA automatically notifies the patient via email, confirming the appointment details. This improves accuracy in data collection and processing and increased client satisfaction.

4.  Added Value of Discharge Instructions

When a patient gets discharged from the hospital after the treatment, he/she is supposed to follow post-medication and healthcare routine. However, most of the patients tend to ignore post-hospitalization recommendations and follow-ups. RPA provides the exact guidelines on following check-ups and post-medication. It is programmed to send timely notifications informing the patients about their schedule, appointments, and tests. RPA solutions ensure continuous communication between a doctor and a patient required for post-hospitalization medical assistance or doubt-clearance, thereby helping with a proper recovery schedule for the patient.RPA helps in optimal post-treatment coverage and a well-organized recovery process.

5. Well Organized Audits

Auditing is a crucial process in the healthcare industry. It keeps the financial health of the hospital in check. Regular audits also help the hospitals to keep a tab on unnecessary expenditure and discover the cost-cutting areas. It is an indispensable routine for any healthcare organization. Auditing is done periodically and includes various categories ranging from patients’ service efficiency check to process safety check.RPA solutions though cannot execute the audit, they can be certainly useful in data recording and report generation, accurately.  This results in well-organized compliance checks and data-informed decisions without any wastage of resources and time.

These are a few of the numerous advantages of adopting RPA solutions. RPA tools ensure improved productivity and efficiency of the hospitals. As per the Deloitte RPA Survey Report, between 51 to 60 percent of the hospitals could see negative margins by 2025 if they are not able to achieve productivity growth. So if the hospitals want a smooth running without any financial distress, RPA is the way to go.

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How Automation is Making Inventory Management an Efficient Yet Effortless Process

Written by Darpan BegdaiOctober 18, 2020

Inventory management forms the heart of all the manufacturing and allied activities – procuring the raw material, converting it into the final offering by the firm, determining optimum stock levels, and reorder quantities. The optimum level of inventory, at a given point, avoids under- and over-investment of funds and resources. An efficient inventory management system is crucial to saving firms from stock-shocks and losing customers.

Role of RPA in Inventory Management

Inventory management includes a series of repetitive tasks across various departments with a mostly transactional nature. Automating, with better coordination among the various departments, reduces redundancy, duplication of work and saves time and effort.

With automation of inventory management, oversights in determining optimum reorder levels, quantities, and delays are eliminated. An automatic system continuously monitors the stock levels, provides day-to-day data on usage rates of various stock items, notifies, and orders when the levels go below the safety-mark.

It analyzes the average daily consumption of raw-materials and adjusts the reorder levels according to the market demand. It determines an optimum stock level by regularly calculating turnover ratios and time period.

Increased levels of transparency help the organization to rectify the stock levels at any time and evaluate present requirements. It is a stable system that gets updated continuously which makes it simpler and easier for the organizations to absorb market shocks and adapt to a dynamic external working environment.

How Inventory Automation benefits SMEs?

For SMEs, with limited free funds, an over-investment in inventory results in a huge opportunity cost as well as carrying and holding costs of the excessive stock. An under-investment, on the other hand, can distort the entire manufacturing process thereby not catching up with the market demand and ultimately losing its customers.

The SMEs, in their growth phase, manually maintaining and monitoring an increasing data on sales, finished goods, WIPs, raw materials, parts, and components, etc. is not an easy task, it more than often results in inaccuracies and mismanagement.

Integrating the inventory management automation system with the firm’s EPR eliminates the need for manual recording and stock-taking by developing a separate database for each of the stock and produce and updating the change in their levels as and when it happens.

How does it work?

It develops and maintains databases for different departments. The automation system keeps accessing the databases of different departments – sales, purchase, production- modifying the re-stocking levels according to the needs of the departments.

Once the stock levels are reduced below the threshold, the automation system kicks in the procurement process. It generates requirement details, sends it to the concerned department for approval, places the order for purchase, collects the invoice from the vendor, and updates the payables account.

The automation system, while ordering the stock, goes through and analyzes all the options available to the firm and identifies the lowest price at which the inventories can be re-ordered. It keeps on evaluating the various lag-periods to determine the time duration that is most cost-effective for re-ordering.

Market research shows firms that have adopted the automation system have effectively reduced their inventory processing time. The time taken for completion of each operating cycle is down by 20% and the entire inventory processing time has been reduced by 70-72%. It also reports, these firms have nearly zeroed the losses incurred due to delays and discrepancies in reorders. The firms with automation have reported zero line stoppages.

An automated inventory management system makes the firm more efficient and organized. Here is how it does it.
Eliminating Mundane Manual tasks:

The process of inventory involves many mundane manual tasks including stock-taking, making purchase orders, updating data on raw materials, finished goods, spare parts, etc., which are prone to human errors The automated system takes over these tasks, executes without any inaccuracies, and on time, and releases much of the human resource blocked in the process.

Efficient coordination:

The process requires a lot of external and internal communication and coordination. The system is integrated with the operating system of the firm, it coordinates the demand and requirement for various inventories at various production and sales levels. Automation, also, communicates with the vendor, supplier, and end customers, resolve their queries instantaneously, and collects feedback.

Cost-effectiveness:

Since automation is able to determine an exact stock level required to keep the business functional, it reduces over-stocking thereby cutting down on the warehousing and holding or carrying costs of the inventories. It also avoids under-stocking and hence, zero or negligible costs are incurred in terms of customer or goodwill loss.

Selecting the right seller:

An automation system thoroughly analyzes the various alternatives available to the firm and picks the seller that asks for the least price. It lists the vendors, gets quotations, matches the offering to the requirements of the firm, checks for hidden costs, if any, and selects the right seller to place the order.

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