AI Assisted Workflow to Reduce Staff Working Hours at Hospitals

Challenge

A typical sight for medical staff is doing an overwhelming number of administrative activities. Hospital workers are constantly engaged in activities like handling new appointment bookings, amending medical records, sending reminder messages, managing paperworks, etc., and in the end talking to patients.

Manual handling these things lead to the following drawbacks:

• The daily administrative routines which remain unchanged
• Patients waiting for a while until they get a response
• Missed meetings, follow-ups, or whatever was meant to be done
• Errors or incorrect entries made during the data entry process
• Time with patients is getting less of a share
• Staff working beyond their limits can become exhausted, reducing their focus on patient care

As the company's operations depend a lot on these activities, they would benefit from an automated method that would help them handle their repetitive tasks while the staff could do the strategic parts of the work.

AI Powered System Strategy

A system was developed in collaboration with an AI workflow that would take care of regular administrative works through automation, starting right from the time a request is made until it is processed.

How the AI Assisted Workflow Works

1. Patient Makes a Request↓
2. AI identifies the nature of your request.↓
3. It will extract the information and organize it systematically↓
4. CRM / medical record system is updated↓
5. Automated confirmation note delivery↓
6. The system also sends reminders to follow up↓
7. Exceptions are transferred to the office employees↓
8. Human contact with staff is made

Important Automated Processes

1. Automatically Processing Requests (ARProc)

Here the task of manual scanning of request pile is delegated to the Artificial intelligence, because one may get tired. Manually handling requests is a boring and tedious job.

For instance:

• Appointment request → The initial step a patient takes to schedule an appointment.
• General enquiry → The starting point in our information processing flow.
• Follow-up request → This continues the Follow-up Workflow.

2. Intelligent Data Extraction (IDE)

Leveraging AI power, the system can skim through forms, emails, and documents at a rapid rate, picking up any relevant information which will be subsequently arranged by their proper categories.

With the use of such a technique, the administrative crew is freed from repetitive data entry tasks.

3. Automated Healthcare Communication

In some cases, the system can automatically generate such communications as:

• Confirming appointments
• Sending reminders
• Delivering post-visit messages
• Issuing document requests
• Providing updates

I am sure you will agree it is a great service to have an automated system reminding your patient by SMS to come for their visit to you.

For instance, when a new patient arrives for a visit. The system can automatically generate a reminder email to the patient. This in turn prompts the right departments to respond appropriately.

One more example: It is not unusual for patients to forget or delay coming to get a service or product that the dental professional provided.

4. Exceptions Handling

Even under such circumstances, complete automation of all processes may not be the best idea.

The system can decide when a matter requires human intervention, and so it has the feature to send the related matter to a human for final decision-making when automatic execution without human review is not appropriate.

The Impact

The staff members are now relieved from handling and inputting routine administrative data or following up on their own since automated tools can take care of such repetitive work tasks. Consequently, staff are available to work more closely with people and handle other tasks that require human input and human decision-making.

Example Impact

In the context of a health care organization, administrative requests that amount to 500 per month, saving an average of 5 minutes per request would result in:

500 × 5 minutes = 2,500 minutes (about 42 hours)

That would translate to the release of about 42 working hours in terms of administrative tasks every month.

The real time saving will depend; besides the way organization is able to handle the requests (its process), on the request volume and the level of automation.

Before and After

Business Value

Incorporation of an AI-powered workflow usually does not remove the demand for staff who are responsible for administrative work. The actual outcome is that the staff does not get occupied with the repetition but instead they can focus their human skills on the jobs that require human input.

Eventually:

• Less manual work means shorter response
• Less variations
• Staff being productive

Ultimately, the improved patient experience will also have a positive impact.