Healthcare is undergoing some of the greatest changes we’ve ever seen, from the implementation of cloud technologies to ICD-10 and value-based care. Yet, while managing challenges like these, practices must also look to cut costs, eliminate waste and improve efficiency.

Leveraging automation technology is an innovative way to address such challenges.
 
After all, automation is everywhere. You use a smartphone to adjust your home thermostat while you’re still at work. You set the time your coffeemaker should start brewing, so the coffee’s ready when you tumble out of bed. You tell your car to park itself, pay your bills automatically and even ask Alexa to add milk to your shopping list when it runs low.
 
We live in a world of technological advancements that make our personal lives easier. Automation is becoming widely used in many industries, such as manufacturing and IT. Despite that, adoption of automation technology lags behind when it comes to healthcare. This is an issue practices must seriously consider when it comes to improving patient care while still controlling costs.
 
Automating manual tasks and processes in your practice allows you to focus more time on your patients and revenue generating tasks. And nowhere is this more evident than in patient document management.
 
The medical industry’s move to paperless records has turned management of patient files into an administrative burden for healthcare organizations. Most medical practices understand that manual indexing is both inefficient and error prone. It creates gaps in data collection and performance monitoring, and ultimately it impacts patient care.
 
The solution? Automating the reconciliation process, indexing and delivery of patient documents to your electronic medical record (EMR) system. Do this, and you can take manual and error-prone indexing task “out of your hands,” improving both patient care and your bottom line.
 
Let’s take a look at the advantages of automating the indexing of patient documents.
 
1. Lower Labor Costs
 
If you look at the average practice’s financial statement, salaries and benefits are a major portion of the expenses. Think of the number of staff you dedicate to manual records indexing today. Automating manual tasks such as these can mean big savings in labor costs. Especially for task like indexing, that can be done more rapidly and accurately by machine.
 
With automated indexing, you can do more work with fewer staff. That savings doesn’t mean you need to reduce staff, though. Instead, automation lets you elevate your existing staff to higher-value, patient-facing functions, using the clinical expertise they were trained for.
 
2. Improved Quality and Consistency
 
Automated indexing eliminates operator error, providing a consistent basis of care activities. Automated patient-to-document matching routines capture a variety of data types from an unlimited array of document types. This helps ensure the patient documents are sent to the right patient files. When that happens, clinicians can provide better care and optimize patient outcomes.
 
3. Savings on Time
 
Switching to automated indexing has the added benefit of time savings. Staff members no longer have to waste valuable time searching for the necessary documents. That’s because automation ensures every document—from lab reports and referrals to EOBs and payments—is automatically placed in the correct patient file.
 
4. More Predictable Outcomes
 
Automated indexing provides for better communication between clinicians, staff and patients. It helps provide clinicians immediate access to the documents they need for a full picture of a patient’s history. These factors result in improved patient care and more predictable outcomes.
 
5. Higher Patient Safety
 
Automated indexing help eliminate orders for duplicate patient tests due to missing or misfiled documents. This leads to increased patient safety through better-informed decision making.
 
So, which practice would you rather have?
 
Practice A:
 
Two full time indexers, each handling 350 documents a day. They must manually scan, index and choose filenames for each document—all while answering phones and performing other back office tasks.
 

• Needed patient files sitting at the bottom of the bin because your indexers haven’t gotten to them yet.
• Nurses and a medical records manager constantly searching for documents that have been misfiled and call to have them re-faxed.

 
Practice B:
An automated indexing solution that ensures rapid turnaround, applies consistent and standardized document naming conventions, patient identification, discrete clinical data capture, and order management.
 

• Staff that are able to focus on what your practice strives to do best—taking care of patients—rather than records management.
• The information you need to make vital clinical decisions at the point of care.

 
Between practices A and B, the difference is automation.
 
Automation is changing the dynamics of healthcare. You can choose to ignore it and keep your status quo. Or you can embrace it to improve practice efficiency and patient care, not to mention reducing costs. An automated indexing solution can simplify your practice, provide a more efficient way of managing your patient documents, and let you provide better care for your patients.
Leave a comment below to tell us how you see automation changing the way you run your practice in the years to come.