Healthcare Magazine January 2021 | Page 56

RPA

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COVID-19 has really highlighted the benefits of RPA , but why did it take a global pandemic for it to become widely adopted ? “ There ’ s actually some good reasons for this ,” Valdez says . “ Some of it relates to the sensitivity of patient information , some of which is driven by compliance , but then also just good patient care and stewardship of patient records as well .

“ HIPAA compliance provides certain types of constraints , and as a result of that , healthcare organisations have been hesitant to outsource certain types of functionalities historically , though it ’ s become much more common . Then when they do outsource , they often want to restrict it geographically , for instance limiting it to

— Roberto Valdez , Director of Cybersecurity Automation and Risk Advisory Services within the United States . In certain conditions , they will offshore , but with really strict and rigid restrictions .”

Another reason is purely down to clinicians ’ habits . “ So much of what is done is in a physical space with patients , where healthcare practitioners are writing notes by hand , or marking charts . Even today there ’ s still tons of paper involved in this system . There are healthcare record systems that are increasingly able to provide good apps and interfaces for digital versions of these , but whatever has been baked in the cake and used for a long period of time is still quite prevalent .”

Despite this , it looks increasingly like RPA in healthcare is here to stay . “ It ’ s very hard to unturn this screw , and part of that is because if you have a nice return on your investment and a nice demonstration of value , then why would you go back ?” Valdez says .

“ The other part is just as simple as implementation and infrastructure . When you go through the effort , cost and time of integrating a system like robotic process automation , then it ’ s probably to your advantage to just continue on that pathway of digital transformation .

JANUARY 2021