Mending the COVID-19 Healthcare Crisis Using RPA

Robotic Process Automation has acquired extensive attention over the last few years. And this is not likely to stop. Even the novel coronavirus caused COVID-19 pandemic cannot subdue it. As more number of skilled minds are forced to stay indoors, companies are slowly turning into ghost towns. Although work from home seems like a possible option, yet it too has its own set of hurdles that need to be overcome for smoother hassle-free functioning. These include internet connection, having zero knowledge on how to use modern science and tech, access to the organization's data pool, remote operation of machinery, etc. This can result in flawed data management, technical unemployment, long output and processing time, inadequate training of the new recruitments.

RPA, here, helps by offering to perform some of the more time-consuming, unchallenging tasks normally undertaken by frontline workers. It empowers industries and companies to build software robots that can mimic how a human laborer or employee works. It can mechanize monotonous, low value or tedious tasks in a streamlined, structured and autonomous way. Thus enabling more effective use of human resources. Further, it can give a boost to customer satisfaction and interaction levels. Other benefits include decreased costs, limit the occurrence of errors, improved operational efficiency better security, improved scalability, advanced governance, all while providing improved analytics for workflow management.

While RPA has bolstered coherent competence in supply chain and financial industries, now it may foster the same in the healthcare sector. The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the onslaught on the workers across all verticals. However, healthcare professionals can't afford to remain in the comfort of home during this emergency scenario. The main challenge is to meet the extensive demands for up-to-date patient data. This entails data entering, registering the patient, checking for previous medical history, symptoms observed, lab results, appointment scheduling, billing, physician credentialing, etc.

All these can take at least 20-30 minutes for a human assistant, while a mere seconds for a bot software. According to a poll conducted by online research hub Pulse, half of roughly 50 businesses in its network are using some form of robotics or automation to help workers cope with the pandemic.

Not only that it has also been successful in managing the high volume of testing requests, call queries. It helped to substantially lessen the wait time for test requests and created new users for the VPN. Some of the enterprise providers for RPA are Kryon, Blue Prism, UiPath, etc.

In the USA, the Department of Homeland Security, collaborated with UiPath to use nearly 500 bots to perform coronavirus-related data analysis. Besides, RPA bots eliminate the necessity for training as they are easy to instruct and swift. To sum up, the RPA sector can give more yields, transform and render a competitive edge to the healthcare industry. And it also provides a unique customer optimized experience. RPA cannot work in isolation.

Therefore, to capture the many benefits of RPA, healthcare services must employ proper governance, careful planning, and well-structured design.