Clinician burnout, staff shortages, and incredible demand sparked by COVID have ignited a workforce crisis in healthcare, possibly its biggest challenge today. A recent roundtable event, hosted by Microsoft and Avanade, shared inspiring information on how healthcare leaders are tackling this issue with the help of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Often when employees hear about automation and AI initiatives they think, “Is my job going to be replaced by a robot?” An idea that often instills fear and creates resistance. However, AI is designed to improve the clinician’s workplace experience and allow them more time for the most important role — delivering care.

At many organizations, nurses spend nearly 50% of their time on administrative duties. Processes to document patient care, searching for needed information and supplies, and coordinating staff scheduling are just some of the areas that cause frustration. Adopting tools to automate or streamline repetitive, time-consuming work processes can not only improve efficiency and productivity, but most importantly, give staff more time to focus on critical thinking work, patient care and, in turn, improve morale and work-life balance.

Today, there is more individual patient and population data available to healthcare professionals than ever before. Unlocking this data and applying AI to predict patient risk and outcomes allows staff to prioritize patient care to deliver better health and wellness outcomes, and possibly save lives.

In the end, automation and AI are valuable tools that can work alongside existing clinical information systems to improve workflows, tackle clinician burnout, and create a better informed, human-centered care experience that increases clinician productivity and care quality.

Learn more about the ways Avanade is helping healthcare organizations optimize their digital solutions.