S C R U B B I N G U P out by nurses, doctors and allied health professionals, the strategic deployment of automation technology can enable them to operate more efficiently and cost effectively.
AI-powered autonomous chatbots can, for example, be used to make phone calls to patients and provide them with information about the healthcare system in general and their treatment and care, in particular, making health information more accessible whilst reducing administrative burdens on the healthcare workforce.
Tailored, reusable conversations can deliver the facts they need in everyday English or another language of their choosing, be that Greek, Italian, Mandarin, Arabic, Vietnamese, Hindi or any other language spoken at home in today’ s multicultural Australia.
Reducing the need for practitioners to spend time on the phone sharing a broadly similar set of facts, over and over again, can save tens of thousands of hours each year.
Less time spent on completing repetitive admin tasks means there’ s more time – and money – to spend on the provision of direct care to patients.
Doing more of what works
It sounds good in theory but, the good news is, it’ s already working in practice. In fact, there’ s a growing body of evidence that demonstrates the efficacy of an intelligent automation approach here in Australia. Healthily is delivering a patient education campaign in Primary Care to provide patients with information about MyMedicare, a voluntary patient registration model designed to forge stronger links between patients and their GPs and healthcare teams.
Patients are sent a link to digital content via SMS and, should they fail to engage with it, they’ re offered a follow-up phone call to guide them through the information it contains.
Prompting at-risk individuals to enrol in preventative programmes and reaching out to older Australians who receive in-home support are other current use cases.
It’ s likely more will emerge, as healthcare organisations become aware of the benefits of intelligent automation and pursue its deployment in a greater range of settings.
Building a healthier future
Improving health outcomes is good for Australians, individually and collectively. Doing so is an objective that should transcend politics, and harnessing the power of automation can help us achieve it, cost effectively and at scale. �
Healthily Managing Director, Dr Tina Campbell
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