Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in Healthcare: What Are the Main Benefits?

Look at the world around you and you will find countless examples of technologies that did not even exist till, say, a decade ago. That’s the thing about the evolution of technology — it has given us countless tools such as mobile apps, autonomous driving, etc. to help the world in myriad different ways. Amid this lot of avant-garde technologies that the market is brimming with, there is one name in the particular name that has managed to carve quite a niche for itself: Robotic Process Automation (RPA). This technology refers to the concept of leveraging technology, fortified by structure and business logic, to automate business processes. There are no doubts about its immense potential, which has led an increasing number of companies from across industries to embrace it. This list includes the healthcare sector as well, where robotic process automation has come to virtually revolutionize business.

A 2019 study by McKinsey found robotic process automation to be among the leading technologies poised to not only play a crucial role in how the future of healthcare shapes out to be, but to also create somewhere between 

$350 billion to  $410 billion in value by as early as 2025. Suffice it to say that there is plenty of scope for this nifty little technology in the world of healthcare. But what does it stand to do for companies in this sector? More than you and I would care to imagine; for starters, robotic process automation can help the healthcare sector to process the results of testing kits much more quickly than a human resource would be able to do. This has proven to be especially handy as the world continues to struggle with the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, that we have answered the ‘what is RPA in healthcare’ bit for you, let’s take a closer look at some ways in which this technology helps the sector.
    1. Improved appointment scheduling: Scheduling appointments may seem like a simple enough task, but things are not as simple when you work in a hospital that sees countless patients every day for a variety of maladies. RPA is, then, able to help in this regard by gathering all the required details and then passing them on to the person responsible for fixing appointments. This also helps ensure proper schedule management for doctors.
    2. Better quality of patient care: Running a hospital is not an easy task by any measure and yet, one of their biggest challenges is still delivering proper quality of patient care. RPA can help in this regard as well; but how? Well, by tending to tasks as simple appointment booking to not only streamline the process but also minimize patients’ waiting time, ensure availability of requisite space, etc. — all factors that instantly boost the quality of care provided to patients.
    3. Improved data analysis: The world knows that data is a gold mine and its analysis is the key to success for any industry. RPA helps with that as well, enabling companies to properly handle and process data as well as offer reports that too in real-time. 
    4. Reduce scope for human error: Considering just how much data hospitals deal with, there is always scope for human error. RPA enables hospitals to effectively deal with this particular issue as well since it digitalizes and automates the handling of data. This reduction in the scope for errors then helps the sector achieve yet more improvement in the quality of care they offer to their patients. 

While this list includes only a handful of the benefits that RPA brings to the table for the healthcare sector, it still makes it abundantly clear that the sector has much to gain from this technology. Starting humongous cost savings to enhancing employee satisfaction rates — robotic process automation can lend quite valuable assistance to any company or facility operating in this sector. So, you can rest assured that integrating RPA in your business too is bound to deliver a bounty of high-quality results.