Covid-19 Testing in a mid-size US Hospital

The Pandemic had put a tremendous load on the healthcare system worldwide, where in patients pretty much the entire population had to be vaccinated, and most processes were manual in nature as systems had to be set up to manage and ensure vaccination of populations. This had some critical challenges and objectives

• Lower Time to process in coming patients
• Lower Cost of Operations
• Scale on Demand
• High Volume Throughput
• Eliminate Errors and Rework.

Business Challenges

• Data Entry Errors: Hospital was using remote admins to register patients in EMR system and print test labels on remote printers.
• Inefficiency: Manual processes are time-consuming, hence building queues contributing to symptomatic patients waiting for hours in cars.
• Large Volume: Sudden bursts of large volume of patients adding to longer processing time and mounting pressure on staff.
• High Cost: Staff shortages, and high costs of overtime added to the challenges of patient care.
• High Volume of Patients: Demand for Covid-19 testing was immense, and hospitals not prepared for dealing with high patient inflow.

Solution Highlights

• Automated the patient registration process: Automation of registration and printing process with UiPath Bots, this significantly reduced wait time and enabled scale.
• Elimination or Errors and Rework: Bots operated with high degree of accuracy thus eliminating manual errors and rework. It also enabled less skilled volunteer staff operate patient onboarding.
• Scalable Automation: Unattended bots work in parallel to process high volumes and operating 24x7 without errors and enabling scale and meeting high volume needs.

Business Outcome

Processing time and wait time for patients reduced to just 7-8 minutes per patient, errors were reduced by 99% and cost of operation was significantly reduced, freeing staff to manage more important tasks.