First white paper delivers global healthcare technology guidance on using automation
The UK’s Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust (NGH) and Automation Anywhere, a global leader in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), today announced a collaboration on a series of white papers that outline their vision of how automation can serve as a force for good across the global healthcare industry and public sector.
The papers will focus on the human impact of RPA, and how this technology, in combination with AI, cloud, and other technologies, can help healthcare systems work smarter, not harder, saving healthcare organizations, like the NHS, millions of hours of time annually while improving patient quality of care.
The first white paper in the series, “RPA: A Force For Good in Healthcare,” written by the two organizations with input from Dr Patrice Seuwou at the University of Northampton UK, is available now and can be downloaded at https://www.automationanywhere.com/makeworkhuman/nhs.
“After working together to build individual automations at the NHS, in March 2020 Automation Anywhere Co-founder and Social Impact Officer Neeti Mehta Shukla and I began having discussions that led us both to realize that our organizations shared a vision for how RPA can revolutionise healthcare,” said Tremaine Richard-Noel: Head of Emerging Technology at Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust, UK. “With this new series of white papers, we are sharing this vision with healthcare leaders around the world, providing them with the knowledge they need to begin using automation to solve the challenges facing their own healthcare organizations.”
Using RPA to Save Time and Improve Quality of Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic
The new series of white papers will draw on NGH’s and Automation Anywhere’s deep levels of expertise and experience in using RPA to automate tedious, repetitive healthcare processes, freeing staff to work focus on innovations that improve patient outcomes.
For example, in March 2020, NGH used Automation Anywhere’s cloud-native Automation 360 platform to develop an automation for 24/7 monitoring of oxygen supply levels during the pandemic. Although NGH did not anticipate any issues with the oxygen supply, it was concerned that an increase in oxygen demand driven by COVID-19 might sap staff time away from other types of patient care, and also wanted to ensure their oxygen readings were constant, consistent, and accurate at a time when oxygen was being used so extensively by patients.
Working through the night in conjunction with Automation Anywhere and technology services provider boxxe, in 12 hours time, the NGH team created an automation that allowed them to monitor the oxygen levels 24 hours a day without human intervention and with 100% data accuracy. This enabled the hospital to repurpose precious staff time during the height of the pandemic, and repurpose more than 1,500 total hours of staff time over the course of the year.
As this example of a COVID-19 pandemic healthcare challenge highlights, healthcare organizations can use digital transformation to evolve and accelerate how they deliver care, while expediting their recovery from the pandemic. RPA can help future-proof the NHS and other global healthcare systems against workforce shortage situations caused by events like the COVID-19 pandemic, while also delivering efficiencies, providing opportunities for economies of scale, and enabling higher productivity.
As the white papers will reveal, RPA also supports global sustainability and environmental, social and governance (ESG) agendas, helping to balance inequalities and improve employee wellbeing.
“Technology serves but one purpose: human enablement,” said Neeti Mehta Shukla: Co-founder and Social Impact Officer at Automation Anywhere. “RPA and AI fulfil the promise of putting patient and front-line-worker experiences into clear focus. As NGH’s use of RPA and this series of white papers makes clear, these technologies save time, improve process accuracy, and make the impossible, possible for people and organizations everywhere. This is especially important in healthcare, where RPA’s impact can literally save lives.”
Using RPA to Transform Healthcare at the NHS
To realize the benefits of RPA at the NHS, in January 2021, the NGH Automation Accelerator programme was created, which is now working with more than 28 NHS organisations nationwide.
The programme team hypothesise that 80% of the UK’s 220 NHS organisations will have some form of RPA implemented by 2023, allowing around 1 million hours of time to be redistributed to higher value tasks, such as those that involve empathy, creativity or decision making.
“We’re excited by the opportunities for RPA across healthcare, and keen to study how it can benefit people: at an industry level; for individuals and teams; across organisations; and how digital transformation can improve the delivery of excellent patient care and experience,” said Lucy Rose Hewitt: Head of Automation Outreach, Engagement and Communications at Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust, UK.
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Automation Anywhere and Automation 360 are trademarks/service marks or registered trademarks/service marks of Automation Anywhere, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
Northampton General Hospital (NGH) NHS Trust’s Automation Accelerator programme forms one of two Robotic Process Automation Centres of Excellence in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), with a team of dedicated experts leveraging technology to transform the way we work across the NHS.
In 2020, Northampton General Hospital and Kettering General Hospital announced the formation of a Group Hospital Model: University of Hospitals Northamptonshire (UHN). NGH alone provides general acute services for a population of 380,000 and hyper-acute stroke, vascular and renal services to almost 700,000 people living throughout Northamptonshire. We are an accredited cancer centre, providing services to 880,000 people who live in Northamptonshire and parts of Buckinghamshire.
For more information relating to the NGH Automation Accelerator or to learn more about the team’s journey, please contact:
Callum Sharman (NGH Automation Accelerator Communication & Engagement Officer) VIA Email: callum.sharman@nhs.net
LinkedIn: @NGHAutomationAccelerator
Twitter: @NGHAutomation
Website coming soon.
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