Indiana University (IU) Health is an academic health system with 16 hospitals and a large network of physicians. IU Health is the largest healthcare provider in the state of Indiana delivering leading-edge medicine and compassionate care to its patients. To help deliver an excellent patient experience, stay ahead of the curve, and operate at maximum efficiency, the health system deployed intelligent process automation (IPA) from SS&C Blue Prism in partnership with Digital Workforce Solution, headquartered in Fishers, Indiana.

Challenge

All healthcare providers are challenged with staffing shortages, growing patient populations, and the ongoing effects of the global pandemic. IU Health’s revenue cycle management team recognized the need to streamline the patient registration process. IU Health has more than 250,000 appointments per month, and each patient must be registered in the electronic medical record system, which requires repetitive data entry. This registration process maintains accurate patient information which is key to providing quality care and ensuring reimbursement. The need for an automated solution to help with registration became apparent when the NCAA tournament was hosted entirely in Indianapolis. Players had to register with IU Health to complete and record daily COVID-19 tests to determine their eligibility.

Solution

IU Health engaged with Digital Workforce Solution (DWS) to deploy SS&C Blue Prism. DWS works closely alongside IU Health to maximize the benefits of intelligent process automation, select the best processes for automation, and train developers and business leaders.

With the need to register more than 15,000 players, coaches, and staff for the 2021 NCAA tournament, IU Health deployed its first set of SS&C Blue Prism digital workers. Instead of hiring and training temporary staff, IU Health leveraged three digital workers to register the players with amazing speed and accuracy.

After realizing the benefits of the initial process automation for the registration process, the IU Health team focused on the use of digital workers to pre-register patients for appointments. Patients who have visited IU Health during the current calendar year are pre-registered by digital workers, who pull previous registration data points. Now, more than 300,000 appointments are pre-registered each month by digital workers — completed in just 2.5 minutes per patient from the previous 3.4 minutes when done manually at the time of service. The IU Health staff is freed up to have meaningful conversations with patients and handle more complex registration issues.

IU Health scaled from five digital workers and three processes in 2020, to 65 digital workers and more than 20 processes two years later. Reusable objects enable the team to rapidly roll out different iterations of the registration process, and strong support from executive leadership helps drive adoption. Next, the team plans to use automation to assist with claims processing and to develop end-to-end solutions throughout the business.