Over the years, healthcare has become one of India’s largest sectors, both in terms of revenue and employment. The healthcare and pharmaceutical sector in India had merger & acquisition activity worth US$ 4.32 billion in the first half of 2022. According to a report by Wharton School of UPenn, ‘technology’ has been the key driving factor in changing healthcare in India. It further says, “Technology infusion — along with expanded infrastructure and efficiencies from process improvements — could help improve health care accessibility and affordability”.

Post covid-19, healthcare sector has seen a lot of changes. From changing dynamics of managing operations to focus on enhancing the customer experience. One thing that has primarily driven this stream of change is the increased focus on technology – especially the latest one like AI, ML, and RPA/IPA-led automation.

In the next three years, 50% of US healthcare providers will invest in RPA technology, according to Gartner. "Healthcare providers are stuck in a perfect storm of reducing payments, increasing outcomes, enhancing experience, and boosting credentials. Any technology put in place to assist these providers in streamlining operations and improving delivery must also minimize costs," says Gartner in its subsequent statement.

In many countries worldwide, including India, ineffective operating procedures, lengthy patient wait times, poor management, etc., are still huge problems to monitor for the healthcare businesses. Let’s consider one of the most basic operations in a hospital – billing and scheduling -it is a challenge which requires lot of workforce. The employee must decide what slot the patient can be put into within the no. of available slots. Also, they must be very focussed while processing the bills to ensure error-free billing. Accuracy and consistency in the service delivery is another challenge faced by healthcare organizations. All of this adds up to inflated costs, inconsistent services, more errors, and overall inefficiency.

So how do we fix this?

To solve this problem, it is necessary to reduce unforeseen expenses that occur during routine activities. To make daily operations more efficient and quicker, a patient-centred, efficient workflow is needed. It is also important to increase employee productivity and deliver services consistently. Technology can come to rescue at this point.

Robotic process automation is a technology that automates the day-to-day, repetitive, mundane tasks of employees, such as filling the forms, moving files, etc. It is integrated with Application Programming Interface (API) & User Interface (UI) to automate everyday repetitive tasks. The size of Robotic Process Automation in the healthcare market was valued at USD 1.13 Billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 1.83 Billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 6% from 2021 to 2028.

The healthcare sector has a lot of administrative and time-consuming tasks, which are general in nature. These non-specializing tasks can be automated with the help of RPA. Following are some use cases of Robotic Process Automation in healthcare:

1. Claims processing: RPA solutions can automate the claims processing tasks such as eligibility verification, claim adjudication, and payment processing. By integrating robotic process automation into healthcare claims administration workflows, a healthcare firm based in Arizona reduced the time needed to process one claim from 20 seconds to just 3 seconds. 
2. Patient data management: RPA tool can be used to manage patient data by automating the processes of data entry, updating records, and sharing information between different systems.
3. Appointment scheduling: RPA tool can assist in scheduling appointments for patients by automatically checking for availability, sending reminders, and updating the system with any changes. Hospitals could eliminate manual data entry and improve their no-show rates, which range from 5% to 39%.
4. Billing and coding: RPA software can mechanize the process of medical billing and coding, ensuring that claims are accurately processed and reimbursed in a timely manner.
5. Inventory management: RPA platform can be implemented to manage inventory by automating the ordering, tracking, and delivery of medical supplies and equipment.
6. Patient feedback and surveys: RPA services can be used to send automated patient feedback and surveys, ensuring that healthcare providers can collect valuable feedback and insights for improving their services.
7. Electronic health records (EHR): RPA tool can be used to automate the process of updating electronic health records by extracting and entering relevant data from different sources.

Robotic Process Automation Solutions is benefitting many aspects of the whole healthcare ecosystem. The impactful changes brought by RPA Solutions are positively multiplying the supply chains, patient care, inter-departmental transitions of patients etc. Some of the benefits are mentioned below:

• Reduction in administrative costs: Automated processes will require far lesser human resources than earlier required. Leveraging RPA platform in healthcare could reduce costs by up to 80%. Robots can operate 24/7 and take no vacation when compared to humans. The administrative and HR cost will reduce thereby decreasing the net cost of catering a patient.

• Increase in patient-catering time: Since most of redundant work will be done by RPA software, longer time is available for value addition, i.e., treatment of patients. Medical organizations could perform labour-intensive tasks 60% faster. For e.g., a patient has 15 minutes appointment out of which 7-8 minutes are wasted in administrative documentation, formal paperwork, and other non-specialised activities. Through Robotic Process Automation these 7-8 minutes will be reduced to 5-10 seconds and hence the doctor can spend 13-14 minutes in the treatment.

• Increase in quantity of handling patients: More no. of patients can be catered within the stipulated time. Let’s say that in 1 hour, 4 patients can visit a doctor of 15 minutes appointment each. 5 min/patient are wasted in redundant works. RPA tool can bring down these 20 minutes to 1-2 minutes and we can attend one more patient in the meantime and hence increasing the quantity of patients attended.

• Increased operational capability: Lesser chances of error in processes. RPA solution offers improved services to processes that have a high probability of human error, thereby increasing accuracy. Robots are reliable, and consistent and do not whine when expected to work tirelessly.

• Improvement in accuracy: The accuracy will increase as human contact decreases. Robotic Process Automation follow all rules to the dot, thereby producing 100% accuracy in the process results.

• Increased employee productivity: Studies show that employee productivity can be increased up to three times. Also, employee morale and retention rate subsequently get a significant boost.  

RPA Technology is one of the fastest-growing technologies emerging out of the 21st century. FiveS Digital is working towards making the healthcare sector more automated and improving the lives of both patients and healthcare businesses. We cater to the patient journey through RPA solutions right from appointment scheduling and seamless inter-departmental transitions to billing and medications. It is the right time to switch from old, conventional processes to newer technologies, thereby improving a patient's journey and being more caring towards them.