Healthcare is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the world. Fortunately, industry-leading AI solutions such as Amelia AIOps (formerly 1Desk) and Amelia can automate many routine tasks related to compliance and allow human caregivers to spend more time caring for patients.
The myriad of regulations governing healthcare are meant to ensure quality services for all patients, but maintaining compliance within evolving patchworks of state and local agencies can be strain on providers’ limited resources. According to the American Hospital Association, providers spend $39 billion a year on regulatory compliance. Fortunately, Artificial Intelligence (AI) might be the perfect tool for compliance officers from across multiple industries, including healthcare.
Many regulatory protocols involve high-volume, routine tasks, which often amount to little more than checklists. When left to human administrative support, these mundane, repeatable jobs are susceptible to human error and inherent lag. However, when handled by AI, routine processes can be executed with machine accuracy 24/7, which makes administrative processes related to compliance more efficient.
Not only does automation optimize administrative procedures, but it frees experienced caregivers and administrators from routine tasks. When humans are liberated from the mundane, their roles will evolve to take advantage of their uniquely human skills such as creative problem solving, listening and interpersonal communication — all of which are particularly important in caregiving. This increased engagement can benefit workers, but can also help trim costs. If AI makes healthcare roles more rewarding, it may also help providers mitigate the growing costs of healthcare staff churn. Indeed, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reports that replacement healthcare costs for non-nurse and non-physician healthcare jobs can cost as much as 20 percent of annual pay.
Say Goodbye to Routine Tasks
Regulatory Affairs (RA) teams are responsible for, among many other things, ensuring that all licenses are up to date and all practitioners are properly covered by insurance. This can be a particularly daunting task in large modern hospital systems, responsible for covering thousands or even tens-of-thousands of medical professionals. However, AI can help take on much of the routine workload.
If the RA team tapped the power of an autonomic framework like AIOps, it could provide an omniscient awareness of the current status of all staff licenses and coverage. When any information needed to be updated or confirmed, an industry-leading cognitive agent like Amelia could proactively notify the caregivers and guide them through the process of updating information — with little-to-no administrative intermediation. Amelia even allows for secure upload/submission of supporting documentation that could be stored for future reference.
Amelia can also take on the role of an always-available assistant to provide checklists to doctors and administrators to ensure compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) or other relevant regulations. Whether AI fully automates tasks, or augments the human workforce, healthcare providers can be assured they will fall under compliance and avoid potentially hefty penalties.
As regulations are a constantly evolving matter, AI is a valuable tool for compliance officers as processes can be updated/deleted/added and instantaneously implemented at scale. Providers will no longer be required to train staff on new regulations as new protocols can be updated as necessary at the speed of electrons.
When healthcare providers embrace the potential of AI to automate routine compliance tasks, they are able to limit overhead costs, take the burden of mundane tasks away from human workers and transfer the emphasis from administration to providing patient care.
