Cure healthcare inefficiencies with RPA

Diagnosis: a large European hospital needed an RPA transfusion

A general care hospital in Europe with 2,000 employees was struggling to manage 70,000 emergency visits and 300,000 outpatients annually—and with patient loads increasing, its problems were just getting worse. Most of their systems were manual, and almost everything (medical files, financial documents, and more) were paper-based.  

 

They were trying to move to digital systems but transferring a flood of paper files into a digital database by hand was not only taking too much time and too many people, but it was also adding critical errors. And updating digital records every time medical or financial information changed wasn’t happening consistently either, because—not surprisingly—health care professionals preferred to spend their time working with patients, not paper.  

 

Another big pain point: inventory management. An inefficient, non-real-time inventory tracking system meant that 20-30% of the hospital’s supplies went unused.  

 

Appointment cancellations and no-shows were also a huge headache, because they often couldn’t be filled at the last minute—leaving the hospital with a revenue gap even though other patients were waiting long times for their visits.

 

A healthy outcome: a more efficient hospital and happier patients

 

When the hospital implemented RPA, the effects were rapid—and profound. RPA allowed it to:

• Eliminate many internal functional silos and create smoother, faster, and less-manually-intensive workflows and activities.
• Give patients transparent, single-point access to their information. For the first time, patients could access their medical histories, billing information, and appointment scheduling and reminders from a unified online platform—which not only improved patient satisfaction, but also improved appointment turnout and timeliness of payments
• Strip costs from its supply chain through real-time reporting and better analytics that let it set optimal inventory levels based on previous needs and patterns in the demand
• Reduce claims processing costs by 75% (from $4 to $1 per claim) by automating 80% of the process.

Happier patients, smoother operations, professionals with more time to focus on patient care—and a much healthier bottom line. That’s the kind of outcome RPA can provide.