Too Many Tasks, Too Little Time: Robotic Process Automation can Help

While the 'robot' aspect of RPA gets most of the attention, successful implementation centers on the people and processes that will be impacted by the technology – and in a healthcare system where burnout is rampant, there are plenty of those. This is the fourth article in a series regarding process-based opportunities as the healthcare industry begins to emerge from the challenges of the pandemic. As noted in the introduction to this series, each of these articles will define an issue, consider the problem and its implications to healthcare, and then present potential solutions.

Earlier in this series, I wrote about the issue of clinician burnout, with the two top contributing factors being the great number of bureaucratic tasks people have to perform, and the excessive number of hours they have to spend at work just to get everything done. That is not just true with clinicians – this story is the same with staff throughout healthcare organizations, whether they work in management, medical records, accounting, claims management or other departments.

Staff members universally have too many tasks to do in a limited amount of time because they are caught up in processes that comprise a host of wasteful, monotonous, manual activities. There are several process improvement solutions to this problem, but in this article, I want to explore how the application of robotic process automation can help.