UiPath and Swiftqueue drive digital innovation in healthcare amid COVID-19 pandemic

UiPath has partnered with Swiftqueue to support patients and hospitals around the world and create significant savings during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The partnership will see UiPath provide its unattended automation solution to bridge Swiftqueue’s patient engagement system with the multiple data storing systems each hospital uses.

To date, the Swiftqueue platform has been used in Ireland, the UK, US, and Canada for scheduling patients for multiple outpatient and diagnostic clinic appointments, including millions of blood tests in hospitals and community settings.

Automation ensures data consistency across multiple hospital departments, with clinicians and healthcare administrators having rapid access to the correct data

By using unattended software robots, the solution is now functional across all hospitals, national healthcare trusts and organisations, diagnostic clinics and specialty departments, and plans are underway to make it available at a global level as well.

Software robots log into all the hospital record systems, verify and pull correct patient data and available slots across every medical specialty into the scheduling platform.

The patient is granted access to a personal account where all appointment details for the patient and their family can be stored and reviewed. If the patient cannot attend an appointment, they can reschedule for a more suitable time.

With robots feeding this information back into hospital back-end systems this instantly frees up a slot to be reused by another patient.

Once the appointment booking process is complete, robots proceed to further automate reporting, aggregate data and communicate key reporting widely in multiple formats to hospitals and healthcare organisations.

Patients’ flexibility to book and amend their own appointments is still under strict control by clinicians and administrators to ensure clinic and clinician rules for the patient’s good health are observed.

The digital solution will make huge savings in many countries where hospital appointments are still made by post and patients are only able to reschedule by phone.

In Ireland, for example, hospitals spend €2.25 for each appointment, while a digitalised approach will only amount to €0.45.

And hospital statistics show that, for 40% of the patients who receive the appointment times via post, the proposed time will not suit them. While 15% of them change their plans and attend the medical appointment, 85% need to call the hospital for rescheduling.

Our partnership with Swiftqueue is tried and tested now and is providing real, tangible, benefits to the Irish people, clinicians and the hospitals for COVID-19 testing

With the COVID-19 pandemic reprioritising medical concerns, it is estimated that the UK will have a staggering backlog of 12 million cancelled appointments that will need to be processed quickly.

Greater efficiency will be therefore required for managing patients’ needs in a post-COVID-19 world, and the use of the automated Swiftqueue platform for millions of appointment allocations and reallocations, after cancelations, will support healthcare staff in yet another unprecedented activity peak.

Brendan Casey, chief executive of Swiftqueue, said: “The global presence and the extended partner community currently managed by UiPath worldwide is a very-attractive environment for Swiftqueue to collaborate in when looking to improve the daily lives of patients and healthcare staff.”

Ian McGregor, public sector director at UiPath, added: “Our partnership with Swiftqueue is tried and tested now and is providing real, tangible, benefits to the Irish people, clinicians and the hospitals for COVID-19 testing.

“In the long term, giving patients autonomy over their appointment booking will reduce the number of healthcare staff required to manage this process.

“Automation ensures data consistency across multiple hospital departments, with clinicians and healthcare administrators having rapid access to the correct data. This frees up medical staff who can be deployed to other departments on the frontline where the need for them is greater, both while fighting the CODIV-19 pandemic and in the aftermath.”