The existing shortage in the number healthcare workers in the US is projected to worsen as demand for service continues to grow.

As healthcare providers are left with an acute concern over how demand can be met without being short-staffed, advances in automation may just be the solution in easing clinicians’ workloads.

Healthcare researchers and consulting firms are forecasting a future of considerable worker shortages in healthcare. Growing demand for healthcare brought about by an aging population is outpacing the growth in the number of healthcare professionals. This sounds quite alarming, as the healthcare industry is already notoriously demanding, with high burnout rates among staff – a burdensome issue which has only been exacerbated since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Naturally, this situation is a topic of concern for healthcare administrators, who are faced with addressing the challenge of recruiting and retaining the staff needed to deliver care to their patients. However, there is no reason to despair at what little can be done by an individual healthcare firm to remedy this unfortunate macroeconomic situation. Meeting the impending explosion in demand for healthcare services is not really about the number of healthcare workers – it’s about the man-hours and woman-hours they put in. Increasing the value of these hours (i.e. through more timely delivery of care and streamlining processes), means meeting more demand with the same time and energy.

Optimizing operational efficiencies in healthcare will prove to be key in overcoming the projected shortage of personnel. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies pose exceptional potential for this.

These technologies have reached the point where they are now economically and operationally feasible for integration into healthcare processes and operations. These technologies have been successfully utilized in healthcare applications already - from asset management to patient-facing uses - demonstrating considerable efficacy in streamlining processes and optimizing delivery of care.

Medical Waste #1: Waiting-room time

Longer time spent in the waiting room was found to be associated with lower patient satisfaction with the care they received and in their overall experience according to a study from The American Journal of Managed Care. Naturally, it’s unrealistic to expect clinicians to be able to see a patient as soon as they arrive; however, time spent in the waiting room doesn’t have to be eliminated. In fact, it can be an untapped resource: what really matters is how the patient spends that time.

A case study from the International Journal of Medical Informatics found high user-acceptance among patients given Pre-Screening Forms (PSFs) in the waiting room. In the case study, the patients’ input was collected and automatically integrated with their electronic health record, and analyzed with a medical logic AI model. This functioned as part of a Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) which provided the clinicians with pre-diagnostic information to consider before discussing the issue with the patient further and face-to-face. This technology made better use of patients’ time, as they could begin the care process upon arrival instead of waiting idly and anxiously. Simultaneously it helped clinicians overcome the tedium associated with screenings and manual entering of information recorded on forms and suggested insights that may have not been otherwise considered.

Medical Waste #2: Manual recording of vital sign data

An article published in the online edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that clinicians spent about four hours a week putting patient health information into digital records. With the inevitable impending increase in the number of patients relative to clinicians, this practice is not only going to become more time-consuming, it is going to become unsustainable.

Medical record automation strategies have already seen successful implementation in the US and in other countries. Vital sign monitoring devices that directly integrate collected data into patients’ electronic health records is one example of this, and it has already seen promising successes. A case study from the UK reported “significant time-releasing benefits” from this technology as clinicians using these devices no longer had to manually record the measured statistics.

Medical Waste #3: Manual cold storage monitoring and validation

Cold storage of biopharmaceuticals requires regimented monitoring and validation practices for quality assurance. When the task of monitoring and validation is left up to manual measurement and recording by healthcare workers, these high standards can quickly make the job tedious if not overwhelming. Automated monitoring and validation of cold storage has already seen successful deployment and use cases. The Director of technology at Northwest Hospital and Medical Center stated that their adoption of automated cold storage monitoring units helped them to streamline these quality assurance processes, delivering a significant ROI.

The capability of IoT monitoring and validation systems to take measurements continuously and in a consistent manner also reduces the risk associated with infrequent or inaccurate measurements resulting from human limitations. In 2018, NBC reported the tragic loss of hundreds of embryos due to a cryopreservation failure, which was discovered too late, resulting in hundreds of devastated families and a class-action lawsuit.

Medical Waste #4: Time spent looking for equipment

Healthcare professionals frequently cite locating missing or available equipment as a notable waste of time in the delivery of care. This problem is easily remedied with a real-time locating system (RTLS) which uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to track assets’ locations and statuses; which can be viewed on a secure portal on a computer. A case study of an IoT-based bed tracking system adopted at Mt. Sinai in New York saw significant reductions in idle time waiting for beds for patients.

Why automate?

If a computer can carry out a task just reliably as a human can, it’s time to ask if it is still worth the human’s time. There are many healthcare tasks that can be automated, and when they aren’t they take up time and energy that could be directed towards a task that only a human can do instead. The time and energy spent in the four weekly hours of manually recording patients’ blood pressure and other vital signs is not being used to its fullest potential. It is time and energy that has gone to waste.

Getting started

We can assist healthcare providers in streamlining their processes, enhancing delivery of care and more with AI, ML and IoT technologies. We can connect you with reputable and HIPAA-compliant service providers who can deliver a number of solutions including: medical record automation systems, telehealth solutions, real-time locating systems, remote patient monitoring, cold-storage monitoring systems and more.

If you would like to learn more about these technologies or how your healthcare organization can benefit from them, feel free to contact us and we will be in touch!