Imagine a world where healthcare providers are away from the hassle of repetitive tasks like data entry and processing and focusing on creating value-driven patient care. Yes, that’s possible with the adoption of automation technologies like RPA, AI, and intelligent document processing that can take over manual tasks and offer better productivity and faster patient service.

We discussed in our previous blog how RPA works in the admission and Discharge process. the next set of healthcare blogs, we are going to discuss another healthcare process which is patient referral update. Let’s dive into the world of automation in healthcare processes.

What is the Patient Referral Process?

Patient referrals are a crucial aspect of healthcare, allowing primary care physicians to connect patients with specialists or other healthcare providers for further evaluation or treatment. Also, physicians refer patients based on what they feel is necessary for them, and this is how many specialists get the bulk of their patient base. This whole patient referral is completed after a bunch of steps completed by a healthcare provider and these steps are-

  1. Initiation
  2. EHR Integration
  3. Referral Matching
  4. Alert Generation
  5. Appointment Scheduling

Manual vs. Automated Patient Referral Update Process

The manual patient referral Update process requires human effort and time for extracting, analyzing, and verifying details shared by patients. Doing manually, healthcare staff face a multitude of challenges like-

  1. Updating high-volume referrals
  2. Standardizing the data
  3. Integrating the data into the intake application
  4. Storing data for audit report generation

Looks like a lot of manual work. But not anymore!

Automation technologies like RPA and AI can handle all the steps involved in the patient referral update process and relieve healthcare staff to focus on patient care. This intricate workflow expedites the transfer of patients’ updated details, guaranteeing swift and high-quality medical attention. Let’s understand how the automated patient referral update process works.

Instead of doing a manually automated patient referral process, the RPA bot can-

  1. Login to the healthcare application
  2. Fill out the available referral information
  3. Updates the status of the patient application in the database
  4. Sends the patient referral application for audit.
  5. Post Sharing the audit report and sending the report in an email as an attachment

Automating the referral update process makes it faster and more accurate. It enables a high probability of achieving the business target by updating the decision earliest as the digital worker service is available 24/7.

Conclusion

Automated patient referral processes have revolutionized the way healthcare systems manage patient referrals, making the process more efficient, accurate, and patient-centered. By leveraging technology to streamline this critical step, healthcare providers can enhance patient outcomes, optimize resource utilization, and ultimately deliver higher quality care. As technology continues to evolve, the automated patient referral process is likely to become an increasingly integral component of modern healthcare systems.

Other Articles in the Series