Question

Topic: Process Automation

Question 1 Read the following scenario.

A small hospital in a rural town was overwhelmed with paperwork, especially since healthcare reform had significantly increased the number of insured patients. This hospital had been using paper records and filing cabinets since its founding and had recently updated its computer system for other reasons, but realised that its handling of manual documents needed to be automated as well. The hospital determined that its key issues included needing the ability to scan and then modify existing forms, ease of mapping, and forms on demand. The hospital formed an active forms review committee in order to carefully examine the more than 500 forms that were currently in use facility-wide. The committee found that the hospital needed to be able to customise forms as required because the forms were not serving the hospital well in their existing format. The committee implemented a forms process audit solution and started with the hospital admissions form. The 23-part form had labels and special-services notes sections and was used for all patients. Once this form alone was eliminated, the hospital was able to show an annual savings of $62,000. In addition, the hospital realised significant savings in eliminating the order time and storage demands of this complicated, preprinted form.

a). Identify the problems faced by this organisation.

b). How did this organisation deal with its problems?

c). How might this organisaton usebusiness process automation to improve their business?

Answer 1

a) Problems faced are:

• Manual handling of large quantity of paper and forms
• Presence of obsolete or unnecessary forms in system
• Inability to scan the documents and modify as per need

b) Organization dealt with the problem by:

• Adopting systematic approach to review the existing forms and remove obsolete one
• Review and revise the format to serve the need and make customize forms as required

c) Business process automation possibilities are:

• E filling of form - It will help to move out of manual handling of documents and everything will be available in system
• Kiosk in the hospital for people to fill online form with only requisite field to input