Decreasing Administrative Workload in Healthcare with Power Automate
Our client is a large hospital providing pioneering treatments and progressive patient care. The hospital and over 1000 medical staff provide emergency and acute care services over multiple medical specialties.
Like most hospitals, the main challenge is to provide a high standard of medical care by enabling medical staff like doctors, nurses, and clinicians to do their jobs more effectively. This would need to be replaced with manual paper-based work.
Client Vision
Our client, a large hospital, was struggling to manage administrative tasks and medical data of the patients. The client was looking for solutions to reduce time on manual administrative activities. They wanted to improve data management strategy and enhance security of patient data. The client was looking forward to improving the overall patient handling system including appointment, diagnosis, billing and patient communication to elevate customer experience.
The challenges
Time Consuming Process for Scheduling and Rescheduling Patients
Scheduling patient appointments by following a manual process was complex and time-consuming. The staff concerned had to check the doctor's availability, send confirmations via mail, updating calendaring too considerable amount of employee time.
Complicated Patient Registration and Admission Process
Our client followed a manual process for registering and admitting patients. It included manual scanning of manual forms, extracting information and entering it into the Electronic Health Records System. This not only caused unnecessary delays but also resulted in dissatisfaction for patients as they had to wait in long queues to get admitted.
Manual Data Entry and Transfer
The client was using manual paper-based data entry procedure which was time consuming and prone to errors. Transferring data to various systems without automation was complex.
Lack of Effective Data Management to get Data Driven Insights
The hospital lacked an effective data management strategy to get data driven insights to understand medical conditions in patients and improve diagnosis.
Lack of Proper Communication and Collaboration among Employees
Lack of effective data transfer strategies across various departments disrupted collaboration opportunities among employees to serve the patients better.
No Effective Patient Communication Strategies
Dedicating more time to routine tasks prevented healthcare professionals from giving more time to patient care. Further, late replies to patient queries hampered communication.
Delayed Surgical Procedure
Lack of coordination among healthcare staff resulted in delayed surgical procedure. Booking operating rooms, scheduling staff, conducting pre surgery checks resulted in a slow surgical flow.
Lack of Effective Blood Bank Management Strategy
Our client found it difficult to track blood bank inventory, manage donor databases, monitor expiry dates, etc., as it took a lot of time and might cause inconveniences during an emergency.
Lack of Strategic Inventory Management
Manual tracking and ordering medical supplies also took up a considerable amount of employee time.
Manuals Errors in Entering Patient Information
Paper-based data entry process was prone to efforts and affected the diagnosis, treatment and overall patient experience with the hospital.
Time-consuming Medical Billing Process
The client was a paper-based medical billing process which at times lacked accuracy due to human errors and was a time-taking task.
Lack of Effective Patient Feedback Strategy
Our client did not have a simplified patient feedback collection strategy to help them improve their services to increase patient satisfaction levels.
The Solution
Easy Patient Scheduling and Rescheduling
We implemented RPA to automate the collection and entry of patient data into hospital management systems.
Simplified Registration and Admission
A Power Automate workflow was implemented to check doctor availability, schedule appointments, send confirmation emails, and update calendars.
Patient Data Management
We integrated power automation with the client’s Electronic Health Record system. This further helped in automating the recurring data entry processes. The automation also helped in sending notifications whenever new patient data was entered.
AI-Driven Data Insights
We further integrated Power Automate with AI and machine learning for analyzing data tents and predicting potential health issues or treatment optimization. This further facilitated improved patient outcomes.
Enhanced Inventory Management
We provided our client with an automated system for monitoring inventory levels in real-time and trigger reordering when supplies fall below a certain threshold. This is to make sure that critical items are always in stock.
Improved Blood Bank Tracking and Management
We integrated automation to track blood inventory levels, monitor expiry dates, and manage donor databases. This also facilitated cross-matching for transfusions, ensuring that the hospital has the right type and quantity of blood available during emergencies.
Automated Appointment Managing
We used Power Automate to streamline the process of scheduling an appointment and decrease no-show rates. Healthcare employees we able to send reminders to expected patients via email and messages.
Digitized Medical Billing
We further created a flow to automate medical bill generation by the data of patients in the Electronic Health Records System. These were also further submitted to the medical companies, reducing the chances of errors and ensuring accuracy in medical billing.
Improved Patient Communication
We utilized Power Automate bots to send reminders and follow-up messages to patients based on appointment dates or health triggers. Further, as manual tasks got automated, medical professionals could focus more on the treatment of patients.
Improved Surgical Flow by Checking Room and Surgeon Availability
By connecting different processes with power automation and enabling smooth data transfer also improved communication and collaboration between employees in the hospital. The automatic checking of doctor and operation room availability, staff scheduling, etc., fastened surgical flows. This further helped in improving efficiency and customer service.
Impact & Results
Enhanced Data Management, Storage and Security
Enabled Deriving Insights from EHRs
Automation has streamlined data collection and management. By integrating Power Automate with EHRs, we helped our clients share data across various departments. This further enabled easy collaboration during patient treatments. EHRs were further used for training AI applications to conduct patient research which further helped in elevating patients.
Enhanced Patient Data Security
Power Automated was incorporated with access control to keep data safe with the client. Only authorized people from the hospital could access patient data.
Improved Patient Support and Medical Service
Boosted Precision and Speed of Medical Diagnosis
As manual data entry tasks got automated, patient data was entered automatically into the system. This allowed medical professionals to access accurate patient data faster, reducing the time needed for medical diagnosis and improving precision.
Easy Schedule Management and Medical Billing
We utilized Power Automate to automatize administrative tasks like schedule management and billing. Manual scheduling and billing used to take a lot of time and were not free from errors. Automized appointment and billing procedures faster but also error-free.
Boosted Medical Communication with Patient
We integrated bots with communication channels to foster smooth patient communication. Patients were getting instant replies for all their queries without the involvement of medical staff to answer patient queries manually. Power Automate was further used for sending reminders to patients regarding appointments and medical triggers based on the patient data stored in the system. This improved medical care and patient satisfaction and fostered business growth.
Updated Inventory Updates Facilitated Prompt Response to Emergencies
Automatic Medical Inventory Tracking
After implementing power automate for medical inventory tracking, the client was never out of stock for emergency medicines or lifesaving drugs. This helped in decreasing response time to medical emergencies.
Improved Blood Bank Management for Better Response
Automation in tracking of blood bank inventory ensuring all the blood groups is in stock ensuring better response when the need arises.
Final Thoughts
This case study on the integration of Power Automate in our client’s healthcare organization reflects how automation helped to improve efficiency in processes and improved patient satisfaction. We focused on improving data management by integrating Power Automate with Electronic Health Records. This enhanced data security, easy data transfer and helped medical staff to get data-driven insights to improve patient diagnosis and treatment.
Moreover, automating manual tasks like appointment scheduling, billing, and communication with patients improved patient experience considerably.
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