LONDON & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--UiPath, the leading Robotic Process Automation (RPA) enterprise software provider, has partnered with Swiftqueue, the cloud-based scheduling platform for healthcare, 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 U.K., the U.S., and Canada for scheduling patients for multiple outpatient and diagnostic clinic appointments including millions of blood tests in hospitals and community settings. 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 patients’ 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 EUR €2.25 for each appointment while a digitalised approach will only amount to EUR €0.45.
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.
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, CEO 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 UK & Ireland at UiPath, said: “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 patient care where the need for them is greater, both while fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and in the aftermath.”
About UiPath
UiPath is leading the ’automation first’ era—championing a robot for every person and enabling robots to learn new skills through artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Through free and open training, UiPath brings digital era skills to millions of people around the world, improving business productivity and efficiency, employee engagement, and customer experience.
The company’s hyperautomation platform combines the #1 Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution with a full suite of capabilities that enable every organization to scale digital business operations at unprecedented speed. The company has already automated millions of repetitive, mind-numbing tasks for businesses and government organizations all over the world including approximately 50% of the Fortune 500.
UiPath was recently recognized as the top company on The Deloitte Technology Fast 500 for 2019, a ranking of the fastest public and private technology companies in North America, and #3 on the 2019 Forbes Cloud 100.
About Swiftqueue
Swiftqueue is a cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) platform built on proven mobile and internet technologies. It allows clinics to communicate available appointments for patients, to manage their next visit online, and improves communication flow while delivering operational excellence and improved efficiencies.
Swiftqueue is a flexible and innovative platform that applies to many healthcare clinic scenarios, enabling new ways for clinics to better manage their availability and patient-specific information through improved patient engagement and communication.
