Administrative work takes up a large part of healthcare professionals’ daily jobs. Studies show that doctors spend nearly 30 minutes in each shift just handling routine prescription refills. Nurses spend about 73% of their workday doing paperwork and other tasks instead of caring for patients. This workload leads to staff feeling tired and makes healthcare less efficient.
A report by Charlie Hoban, Ran Strul, Marisa Flignor, and Zoe Kreutzer shows that administrative costs have grown along with clinical spending. Between 1999 and 2019, these costs made up about 25% of total healthcare spending. Experts warn that by 2035, administrative costs might reach $2.2 trillion, or around $6,400 per person. These difficulties affect healthcare organizations deeply. Two out of three doctors say paperwork is the top reason they feel burned out. Almost half of non-clinical workers say they have too much work. These problems lower staff spirits and hurt patient care quality.
Many tasks like scheduling appointments, processing insurance claims, getting prior approvals, handling credentialing and licensing, and answering patient calls still require a lot of manual work. Even though automation is growing, much of this work remains slow and repetitive.
Healthcare automation means using technology to do routine, rule-based admin and operations work without needing humans all the time. This includes tools like robotic process automation (RPA) and AI systems that understand human language and manage complex workflows.
Automation helps by cutting down repeated work, standardizing steps, and speeding up responses. For example, linking electronic health records (EHR) with automated refill systems saves time for healthcare providers. Healthfinch’s software Swoop, supported by a $450,000 grant, automates prescription refills by using evidence-based rules, checking for discontinued or duplicate medications, and preparing refill approvals for nurses or doctors to finalize. This reduces mental strain on doctors and lets them focus more on patients than paperwork.
Automation also helps with appointment scheduling and answering phone calls at the front desk. This improves patient access and satisfaction while lowering staff workload. Still, 84% of US providers require scheduling by phone or a front desk worker. Simbo AI offers AI-powered phone answering to help reduce errors, wait times, and interruptions. Such tools improve how healthcare offices run.
Nurses play a big role in patient care but have too much paperwork, taking time away from patients. Automation in nursing can cut down on documentation and communications tasks, giving nurses more time to care for patients.
A study found nurses spend about 73% of their day on paperwork, which leads to burnout and wastes their clinical skills. Technologies like automated clinical decision support, task assignments, appointment reminders, and follow-up calls after discharge can make work easier.
For example, automated follow-up systems send calls or texts to check on patients after they leave the hospital. This helps spot problems quickly and lets nurses focus on patients who need help. By cutting manual tracking and follow-ups, these systems improve staff satisfaction and patient care.
CipherHealth makes tools like this. They help hospitals avoid readmissions and connect better with patients. This benefits patients with faster care and allows nurses to spend more time on clinical work rather than clerical tasks. It helps nurses work at the highest skill level they can.
Administrative work is a challenge in clinical research too. Manual data entry and disconnected electronic systems create extra work for research staff.
Healthcare automation helps by standardizing data entry with guided electronic workflows. It also links various systems like electronic medical records, electronic data capture, and clinical trial management. Real-time connections between these systems lead to fewer errors, better compliance, and more reliable data.
Automated systems can also securely transfer sensitive data to protect patient and trial information.
Clinical researchers benefit from doing less manual entry and repetitive tasks. This raises productivity and lowers burnout. Sara Brueck Nichols, MHA, says automation is key to making clinical trials more efficient and reliable. It helps clinical staff spend more time caring for patients and less time on paperwork.
Administrative work in healthcare raises costs and affects care quality. Estimates say that reducing this work could save the US healthcare system over $450 billion by 2035 through automation and process changes.
Back-office functions like human resources, accounting, and legal make up about 40% of these costs. This is almost twice what other industries spend. Automating these areas could cut costs by 15% or more.
Prior authorization processes cause delays and denials often. AI and machine learning are starting to improve prior authorization reviews. They speed up decisions and reduce the need for manual work. This also helps meet government rules for faster approval times and clearer reporting.
Another challenge is delays in credentialing and licensing providers. These delays can be more than five months. Using centralized data management and digital workflows can shorten these waits, letting clinicians work more smoothly across care settings.
Qventus shows how AI operational assistants ease admin work in urgent and surgery-related care. These AI systems automate tasks like coordinating before and after surgery and discharge planning. This helps hospitals run more smoothly and cuts cancellations.
Hospitals such as OhioHealth and HonorHealth have seen big improvements with Qventus tools. OhioHealth saved nearly 1,400 excess inpatient days and about $500,000 in one month. HonorHealth reduced inpatient excess days by over 50,000 and saved $62 million in three years.
This means staff are more available and patient care gets better. Qventus’ perioperative AI also increased surgeries by 3 to 6 cases per operating room each month. It gave returns from 6 to 27 times the cost of the tools. When automation supports workflow, hospitals improve both care and finances.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and workflow automation are changing healthcare admin by handling repetitive tasks and improving processes. For healthcare managers and IT staff, AI can reduce phone calls, speed patient registration, quicken prescription refills, and help with billing.
AI types like robotic process automation (RPA), natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and generative AI automate document handling, data extraction, and decision support. They help improve clinical decisions, cut mistakes, and speed up admin tasks.
Deloitte’s healthcare AI tools like ReadyAI™ and ConvergeHealth™ help create AI plans that improve efficiency, patient experience, and lower costs. Examples include:
These tools help doctors, nurses, and admin staff work faster and focus on important care tasks. AI added to electronic health record systems cuts manual data entry and repetitive work.
In the front office, companies like Simbo AI use AI phone answering and call automation to manage appointments and patient questions well. This lowers front desk workload and improves patient access. Automation of front-office tasks fits with wider efforts to cut admin work in healthcare facilities.
Healthcare automation tools help staff feel better by freeing them from paperwork that causes burnout. Staff can focus more on their clinical skills.
Lower admin work also improves patient care. For example, automated follow-ups after discharge catch problems early and reduce hospital readmissions. Automation also helps make sure medication refills follow protocols, which lowers errors and bad reactions.
Using automation supports healthcare’s Quadruple Aim: improving patient health, patient experience, staff satisfaction, and lowering care costs. Technology that streamlines workflow helps healthcare handle more patients while keeping quality and safety high.
Healthcare administrators and IT managers in the US should plan carefully before using healthcare automation. Integrated automation reduces disconnected workflows and uses data from electronic records and operations.
Key points to think about:
Automation tools for phone handling, prescription refills, nursing records, and clinical trial management help workflows run smoothly and boost staff efficiency. Organizations that adopt these tools can cut costs, increase their capacity, and improve patient care.
Healthcare automation tools like AI and workflow automation are important for fixing admin and operational challenges faced by US healthcare providers. Helping clinical staff work at their highest skill levels and cutting costly paperwork makes healthcare more efficient and patient-focused. Healthcare managers, owners, and IT staff have a chance to lead the way in using these tools to improve operations and clinical results across the country.
Healthfinch is a software platform aimed at improving quality and access to care by automating routine and repeatable healthcare tasks to enhance provider efficiency.
It addresses inefficiency in processing routine prescription refills, which often takes up to 30 minutes per shift per physician, diverting time from direct patient care.
California law allows nursing staff and medical assistants to authorize routine prescription refills under physician supervision, given prescriptions are in the patient’s chart as physician-approved standing orders, dosage remains unchanged, and no patient monitoring is due.
Swoop is Healthfinch’s software that automates the prescription refill process by applying evidence-based protocols, improving accuracy, and saving provider time.
Swoop checks for discontinued medications, duplicate or outstanding refill requests and applies established protocols before prepopulating refill orders for approval.
Refill orders prepopulated by Swoop are delivered to nurses, medical assistants, or physicians for final approval.
Automation enables staff to work at the top of their license by reducing administrative burdens and freeing up time for direct patient care.
CHCF invested $450,000 in Healthfinch to expand operations to California safety-net providers and supports the potential of healthcare automation to save time, reduce costs, and improve care.
Healthfinch received $7.5 million in funding to build a second automation app named ‘Charlie’ aimed at further automating electronic medical record (EMR) processes.
By reducing inconsistent refill orders, ensuring protocol compliance, and minimizing manual errors, automation ensures safer, more accurate medication management, positively impacting patient outcomes.
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