The Challenge of Traditional Follow-Up Care

As pivotal as follow-up procedures are, they are often plagued by fragmented communication channels, person dependencies, and inconsistent patient engagement. These issues lead to delays in crucial information dissemination, missed appointments, and – ultimately – compromise patient outcomes.

Typical challenges in follow-up cancer care process design:

• Fragmented Communication: Traditional follow-up processes involve fragmented communication channels and personal dependencies, leading to delays and inefficiencies.
• Patient Engagement: Patients are not involved in setting up appointments. A time is scheduled for them, and they may struggle to adhere to the appointments due to several reasons, including inconvenience and lack of awareness. Rescheduling requires more manual work and missed appointments waste healthcare workers’ time.
• Data Management: Managing patient data for follow-up relies on cumbersome manual work and is prone to human error.

Embracing Technological Solutions for Better Patient Outcomes

Digital platforms, robots and AI offer a new-found transformative solution to the shortcomings of traditional follow-up processes. By harnessing the power of intelligent technologies, healthcare providers can streamline communication, automate reminders, and integrate patient data seamlessly across various systems.

Working in the field since the inception of our company, Digital Workforce is today a global leader in building tailored intelligent process management and automation solutions for healthcare. Together with our client, one of Nordic’s most prominent cancer care providers, we had the opportunity to develop and build a totally new end-to-end solution to transform their breast cancer follow-up.

What We Do (and You Should Do Too) to Transform Follow-Up Care for Long-Term Illness

At the start of the project, our client reported a wait time for scheduled testing and follow-up appointments that approached 9 months due to the before-listed challenges.

To alleviate the manual workload on healthcare workers and expedite patient care, we devised a fully automated surveillance solution, overseen by a cloud-based Cancer Care Follow-up Automation and Management solution, covering the entirety of the patient’s care period.

In the solution, appointments are automatically offered to the patients requiring timely check-ups and allowed to book themselves a suitable time. Automated orders are sent for X-ray mammography, and reminders about scheduled appointments are sent to the patient before their check-up. Patients may also independently reschedule their appointment.

After testing, a radiologist reviews the X-ray results, and the solution reads the reported results in the EMR system to determine the next steps.

Depending on the result, the patient gets an automated message containing their results and – if needed – instructions to book further tests or appointments with an oncologist.

The transformation of breast cancer follow-up care included:

• Digital Platforms: Utilizing digital platforms to streamline communication between healthcare providers and patients, reduce delays and improve engagement.
• Automated Reminders: Implementing automated reminders for appointments and medication adherence to improve patient compliance and reduce missed appointments.
• Data Integration: Integrating patient data across healthcare systems to ensure seamless access and enhances the quality of care.
• Personalized Care Plans: Enabling effective tailoring of follow-up plans to individual patient needs to increase engagement and improve patient care.

The Healing Power of Seamless Collaboration Between Technology & People

Elevating cancer care follow-up through technology yields significant benefits for both patients and healthcare providers. Improved patient engagement, better treatment adherence, and enhanced communication translate into superior patient progress and a more satisfying healthcare experience.

Projected results for the solution include:

• Cutting patients’ wait time for appointments from 9 to 1 month
• From 0% to 80% of patients being handled with no clinical involvement (neutral results)
• Up to 72000 automated yearly tasks
• Neutral results reported to patients in under 12h
• 5x more time spent with patients that need it most

To learn more about how we enable healthcare transformation, watch Juha Järvi, Digital Workforce’s Global Head of Healthcare, discuss breast cancer follow-up care.

The post Enhancing Cancer Care Follow-Up: Empowering Clinical Excellence appeared first on Digital Workforce.

No matter how far you are in your automation journey, Robotic Process Automation will play an important part in it. The further you go into the realm of digital transformation, the more apparent the synergy between Business Process Automation (BPA) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) becomes. In this third part of our BPA blog series, we focus on how RPA assists in connecting enterprise applications and systems to the orchestration layer and harmonizing human and robotic efforts into a cohesive workflow.

1. Opposites attract: The relationship between BPA and RPA
   Both BPA and RPA have their own unique strengths that they bring to the table. While BPA orchestrates complex, end-to-end processes, RPA excels in automating rule-based, repetitive tasks. The synergy lies in the strategic marriage of these technologies, creating a dynamic ecosystem where the strengths of one complement the limitations of the other. Together, they transform disjointed processes into efficient workflows, ensuring that RPA tasks fit cohesively into the larger business processes.
2. Connecting legacy applications to the orchestrated workflow
   Not all applications have APIs through which data can be transferred back and forth. This is where RPA shines at its brightest, bridging the gap between the applications and orchestrated workflow. BPA tools facilitate the communication between RPA bots and diverse enterprise systems. Whether it’s extracting data from legacy applications, populating data into ERP systems, or orchestrating interactions across various platforms, the integration of BPA ensures that RPA becomes a versatile actor within the broader automation narrative.
3. Enabling Human-Robot Collaboration
   Amidst the automated processes, the human touch will always be needed one way or another. Human-in-the-Loop tasks within BPA and RPA workflows emphasize the collaboration between human workers and robotic counterparts. BPA tools, in this context, provide a platform where humans can intervene, make decisions that the automation is not capable of or allowed to be doing. This dynamic collaboration maximizes the strengths of both humans and robots, creating an outcome that is greater than the sum of its parts.
4. Governance and Compliance
   In the orchestration of BPA and RPA processes, the importance of governance and compliance must be considered. BPA tools play a crucial role in ensuring that the combined efforts of humans and robots adhere to regulatory standards and organizational policies. From audit trails to process monitoring, BPA provides the framework for maintaining order and transparency in the dynamic landscape of automated workflows.

It can be said that the cooperation between BPA and RPA is not just a collaboration; rather, it’s a symbiotic relationship that helps transform business processes. From seamless orchestration and integration with enterprise applications to human collaboration and governance, the marriage of BPA and RPA creates a holistic automation ecosystem. The orchestration of BPA and RPA processes is the key to unlocking new levels of efficiency, agility, and innovation for any organisation on their digital transformation journey.

Experience the power of seamless automation with our Digital Workforce Outsmart service. From streamlining simple workflows to complex case management, our unified cloud service adapts to your business needs. It’s designed for efficiency and priced for value – see tangible results in every aspect of your operations.

Ready to transform your business?
Want to know more about what BPA can do for your organization? Book a session with our experts here→

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A further delve into the key concepts of Business Process Automation. As pointed out in our previous blog post, organizations embark on transformative BPA journeys to streamline their operations and harmonize their processes. This time we delve deeper into the realm of BPA and look at some additional concepts, shedding light on their relevance in the automation ecosystem. Beyond Simple Workflow Automation, End-to-End Automation, Case Management, and Service Orchestration, here are some more layers of the BPA domain.

1. Data-Driven Decision Making: An end-to-end business process has a huge amount of data flowing through it. Orchestrating that business process with BPA makes that fully transparent and enables you to use the data to your advantage. Data-driven decision making is a concept that emphasizes leveraging analytics and insights to inform and optimize business processes. Outcome prediction, informed decision-making, continuous process refining… there are many, many opportunities. With BPA, all this and more becomes available to you – in real-time.
2. Handling the Unpredictable with Adaptive Case Management: The benefits of Case Management were already briefly pointed out in the previous blog post. Let’s expand on that further by looking into Adaptive Case Management (ACM). ACM puts an emphasis on the adaptive nature of processes and supports it by allowing for real-time adjustments – both human- and automation-driven – based on evolving circumstances. With ACM, you can embrace the unpredictability of unstructured or semi-structured processes and respond dynamically to changing conditions, ensuring optimal outcomes no matter what.
3. Seamless collaboration with Human-Centric BPA: The role of humans in BPA-powered end-to-end business processes is essential. Human-Centric BPA is the concept of creating a symbiotic relationship between humans and machines in the automation landscape. This concept emphasizes designing processes that enhance human productivity, facilitate collaboration, and empower all employees across teams and functions with the tools and insights needed to contribute meaningfully to the end-to-end business process.
4. Continuous Improvement through Process Mining: Another crucial concept in the BPA arsenal, Process Mining enables organizations to discover inefficiencies and bottlenecks in their processes that are often hidden amongst the process steps. BPA offers a data-driven approach to process improvement, ensures that organizations not only automate existing processes but also continually refine and optimize them for maximum efficiency. Once the detailed flow of a business process has been exposed by applying BPA, it becomes clear how much time each step of the process takes, making it easy to find tasks and work flow sequences that could be improved.
5. Handling information with Intelligent Document Processing: Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) has changed how unstructured data is handled by applying optical character recognition (OCR) with machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) to the process. BPA tools go hand in hand with IDP, enriching the workflows with the aforementioned technologies to extract relevant information from documents, automating data entry, reducing the manual handling times of documents by up to 90%. This concept enhances accuracy, speeds up processing times, and minimizes the risk of errors associated with manual data handling.

In conclusion, the BPA horizon extends far beyond simple workflow automation and service orchestration. Data-driven decision making, adaptive case management, human-centric BPA, process mining, and intelligent document processing are just some of the concepts in the BPA narrative. Any organization utilizing BPA, armed with these concepts – not forgetting a solid understanding of OMG standards – will have all the tools they need to elevate their processes to new heights of efficiency and innovation.

Experience the power of seamless automation with our Digital Workforce Outsmart service. From streamlining simple workflows to complex case management, our unified cloud service adapts to your business needs. It’s designed for efficiency and priced for value – see tangible results in every aspect of your operations.

Ready to transform your business?
Discover more about Outsmart and its benefits here →

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Business Process Automation (BPA) has already empowered many organisations to drive efficiency, cut costs, and integrate their operations more seamlessly, helping them streamline their operations and harmonize their processes. But what makes BPA so powerful? In this article, we dive into its four main concepts: Simple Workflow Automation, End-to-End Automation, Case Management, and Service Orchestration. We will also be explaining how the OMG standards of CMMN, BPMN and DMN play an important part in all this.

Harmonising Simplicity: Simple Workflow Automation
When a process has a small number of actors and systems, simple workflow automation is the way to go. Common characteristics of these processes are a smaller number of steps, fewer human approvals, and a concise life cycle. Here, BPA enables business technologists* to orchestrate their processes with their self-built, intelligent, process-centric applications, all without involving the IT development staff too much.

*From Gartner Glossary: Business technologists are individuals whose primary job entails technology work (such as Python developers hired in Marketing, data scientists hired in finance and accounting teams, or software engineers hired in R&D). They can also be citizen developers who build applications or automated workflows even though their primary job description is outside the IT department.

Navigating the Labyrinth: End-to-end automation
Automating everything in an end-to-end business process is not realistic. What matters is looking at the process and determining what is, and what isn’t, feasible to automate, and with which technology. Then you can start creating a continuous workflow from each process step, chaining automated tasks and user tasks together. Processes spanning multiple systems, teams and departments in an organisation tend to be long-running, have a large number of steps, and have complex business rules and decision logic. Being able to harmoniously orchestrate multiple automation technologies like RPA, intelligent document processing and task mining – interwoven with manual user tasks where needed, all available via a single interface – makes BPA the most viable automation approach of today and tomorrow for a reason.

Adapting to Unpredictability: Case Management
What about the processes that are unstructured, where exceptions are met at every turn? Here, BPA tools become the guides to executing the process, providing real-time operational context to drive actions and interactions among humans, systems, and bots. In Case Management, business users have the power to start additional process steps, both manual and automated. The focus shifts to dynamic adaptability, where each process instance is a unique journey where the unpredictable terrain of unstructured or semi-structured processes is navigated.

Service Orchestration with Microservices
As microservices become more and more commonplace, Service Orchestration emerges as the conductor, orchestrating multiple microservices cohesively. Scalability, resilience, and cloud-native deployment become key characteristics, enabling organizations to process a multitude of transactions seamlessly, and have real-time visibility into the proceedings.

OMG Standards: Building a Common Language
Business process analysts are already very likely familiar with OMG standards, at the very least BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation). As organizations embark on their automation journey, a common language becomes imperative, and OMG standards – CMMN, BPMN, and DMN – emerge as the unifying threads. CMMN (Case Management Model and Notation) paints the canvas for case management scenarios, BPMN visually captures the essence of business processes, and DMN (Decision Model and Notation) enables one to visualize the rules of a business process. These standards provide clarity, consistency, and interoperability in the diverse landscape of BPA initiatives.

In Business Process Automation, understanding the nuances of each use case is important. Simple Workflow Automation, End-to-End Automation, Case Management, and Service Orchestration, guided by the principles of OMG standards, allow you to orchestrate any business process. The bigger it is, the more benefits there are to reap. As organizations navigate the mosaic of BPA, understanding these capabilities is vital to make the vision of a harmonious future of streamlined operations and optimized processes a reality.

Experience the power of seamless automation with our Digital Workforce Outsmart service. From streamlining simple workflows to complex case management, our unified cloud service adapts to your business needs. It’s designed for efficiency and priced for value – see tangible results in every aspect of your operations.

Ready to transform your business?
Discover more about Outsmart and its benefits here →

The post Unlocking Efficiency and Innovation: How Business Process Automation (BPA) Revolutionizes Organizational Operations appeared first on Digital Workforce.

Advancing Healthcare Finance: Digital Workforce Collaborates with Top Cancer Institute

Digital Workforce, a leader in business process automation, is excited to announce its strategic partnership with a globally renowned cancer research institute in the US. This collaboration aims at optimizing the front-end revenue cycle processes of the institute and complementing the efforts of its highly efficient in-house team.

As part of the agreement, Digital Workforce will implement advanced Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions to automate the fundamental patient access workflow, in their world-class EMR system. The initiative is expected to enhance operational efficiency, reduce costs, and support the institute’s dedication to world-class cancer research and patient care.

”We also believe that this kind of automation will increase patient satisfaction. We have witnessed elsewhere where similar referral processes have reduced the referral lead time down from 32 to 4 hours processing time. This will significantly improve the patient experience together with other key KPIs. This is particularly important since often, if not always, referral is the only way to receive treatment from highly specialized healthcare providers”, said Juha Järvi, Global Head of Healthcare for Digital Workforce

“We are thrilled to collaborate with this esteemed institute. This represents a significant step in demonstrating the transformative power of RPA in healthcare, in the context of revenue cycle, while improving the patient access,” said Jussi Vasama, the CEO of Digital Workforce. “Our commitment is to deliver solutions that streamline processes and contribute to the institute’s noble mission of advancing cancer treatment and research.”

This partnership highlights Digital Workforce’s expertise in customizing automation solutions to meet the unique needs of the healthcare sector in the US. It underlines the potential of RPA in enhancing core operational revenue cycle operations, leading to more efficient and effective resource allocation in critical research and care areas, while improving access to care and patient experience.

Digital Workforce, known for its expertise in healthcare automation and extensive experience with major EMR platforms, has become a reliable partner for healthcare organizations focused on improving processes, reducing errors, and streamlining operations. This new agreement reinforces Digital Workforce’s position as a top choice for automation services among leading US healthcare providers and institutes.

For further information, please contact:

Jussi Vasama, CEO, Tel. +358 50 380 9893, jussi.vasama@digitalworkforce.com
Juha Järvi, Global Head of Healthcare +358 40 753 0963, juha.jarvi@digitalworkforce.com

About Digital Workforce Services Plc
Digital Workforce Services Plc is a leading business process automation services and technology solution provider globally. Digital Workforce Outsmart services and technology solution suites allow organisations to save costs, accelerate digitalisation, increase revenue, improve customer experience, and gain a competitive advantage. Globally, over 250 large customers use Digital Workforce’s services and technologies to transform their businesses with automation. Founded in 2015, Digital Workforce currently employs over 200 business automation specialists in the US, the UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Digital Workforce is publicly listed in Nasdaq First North Growth Market Finland.

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In the banking and insurance sectors, large-scale information processing has served as an ideal foundation for automation. Within these organizations, automation has rapidly gained ground, with some initiatives moving close to achieving straight-through processing and reducing the need for manual intervention.

Banks, in particular, have succeeded in significantly boosting their efficiency. The downside, however, has been a decrease in customer satisfaction with the loss of personalized service.

The post Unlocking customer-centric innovation appeared first on Digital Workforce.

Mark your calendars for our first session on September 25th. During this dynamic live discussion, we’ll examine the issues that prevent organisations from tapping into the maximum productivity of their tools (MS Power Automate, SSC BluePrism, UiPath, and Robot Framework) and identify ways to improve results. Anders Jensen and Digital Workforce’s Elias Levo will dissect these barriers and provide tangible solutions.

Secure your place in these knowledge-packed sessions. Subscribe to receive notifications and join us live here.

For those interested in attending all three sessions, please bookmark the following links:

25.9.2023 Elias Levo: Session link

26.9.2023 Niko Lehtonen: Session link

27.9.2023 Karli Kalpala: Session link

Detailed Session Schedule:

Session 1 – How to Maximize the Potential of Your RPA Program in 2023

Did you know that, on average, companies with an on-prem license setup and an in-house RPA team tend to underestimate their costs by 40-60%? RPA license costs are only the tip of the iceberg. 70% of an RPA program’s costs are ‘below the surface’ and can be easily missed or difficult to measure.

In this session, we’ll examine the issues that prevent organizations from tapping into the maximum productivity of their tools (MS Power Automate, SS&C Blue Prism, UiPath and Robot Framework) and identify ways to improve results.

Four typical reasons for buying more licenses than needed:

1. Time-sensitive & business-critical processes
2. Concurrent Runs
3. Seasonal runs
4. Purchase models

Join our session, “How to Maximize the Productivity of Your RPA Program,” for practical solutions that can help you overcome productivity gaps and save on hidden costs.

The session is led by Elias Levo, Head of Service Operations at Digital Workforce Services Plc | Leader, thinker and doer with a great nose for business | Builder of Operations | Business Design and Modelling Enthusiast |

Session 2 – Moving beyond RPA – Benefits of Integrating BPM to RPA

The convergence of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Business Process Management (BPM) holds tremendous operational excellence and automation potential. While RPA has proven its worth in eliminating mundane and repetitive tasks, orchestrating critical customer journeys across organizational silos demands a more sophisticated capability. By seamlessly integrating BPM with mature RPA programs, organizations can achieve unprecedented transparency, visibility, control, and orchestration, revolutionizing their overall business operations.

Join this session for a live demo of Digital Workforce Outsmart PASS Platform to see how to plan and build end-to-end workflows with Flowable, connect BPM with RPA technologies like MS Power Automate, SS&C Blue Prism, UiPath and Robot Framework, and other tools like Azure Form Recognizer and APIs, and use dashboard and reporting for a real-time view of the business processes.

This session is led by Niko Lehtonen, Automation Solution Architect (BPO, AI, OCR, RPA, Low-Code, Human-in-the-Loop) Chez Digital Workforce Services Plc

Session 3 – Five Use Cases of Business Process Automation delivering over 50% improvement in KPIs Healthcare

• A new solution to manage care paths Financial Services
• Automating global end-to-end tax processes Manufacturing
• Order intake automation combining Humans, BPA, RPA and AI Retail
• Processing garment and fabric certificate documents BPO Services
• Envisioning Touchless Payroll Process

Join this session to learn how different organizations have succeeded in gaining markedly over 50% improvements in their operational KPIs by using Business Process Automation. In this session, you’ll discover where you can apply BPA and what kind of results are possible, and what has been the role of RPA technologies like MS Power Automate, SS&C Blue Prism, UiPath and Robot Framework in these projects.

This session is led by Karli Kalpala, Head of Strategic Transformation & Financial Services Industry at Digital Workforce Services Plc

Take advantage of this unique opportunity to learn from Anders Jensen and our Digital Workforce team.

See you at the live!

About Digital Workforce Services Plc

Digital Workforce Services Plc is a leading business process automation services provider globally. Digital Workforce Outsmart services and technology solution suite allow organizations to save costs, accelerate digitalization, increase revenue, improve customer experience and gain competitive advantage. Globally, over 200 large customers use Digital Workforce’s services and technologies to transform their businesses with automation. Founded in 2015, Digital Workforce currently employs over 200 business automation specialists in the US, the UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Digital Workforce is publicly listed in Nasdaq First North Growth Market Finland.

https://andersjensen.org/

 https://youtube.com/@andersjensenorg

The post Groundbreaking Collaboration: A Series of Dynamic Live Sessions with RPA Maestro and YouTuber Anders Jensen appeared first on Digital Workforce.

Digital Workforce Propels Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust’s Intelligent Automation Transformation Programme in Maternity to Win Renowned HSJ Digital Award

Digital Workforce, a leading provider of Primary and Clinical Intelligent Automation and Patient Journey Orchestration solutions, is proud to announce that Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, in partnership with Digital Workforce Services Plc and PSTG Ltd, has won the prestigious ‘Improving back-office efficiencies through digital’ HSJ Digital Award for their revolutionary Intelligent Automation Transformation Programme in Maternity.

The HSJ Digital Awards recognize outstanding contributions towards healthcare services, and winning this national award demonstrates the exceptional drive of the team to innovate, build impactful solutions, and take on an instrumental role in transforming healthcare delivery. Winners from 19 categories were announced during the ceremony in Manchester on June 22, hosted by comedian and author Mark Watson, celebrating the achievements of 162 shortlisted finalists from across 120 individual Trusts and organizations.

The solution automates maternity appointments, referrals, alerts, and record management processes, reducing the time it takes pregnant women to receive an appointment date from 6-8 weeks to just 48 hours.

“This beautifully presented entry highlighted the delivery of an effective solution to an important issue. The judges felt that it is clear how much of an impact this model had on maximizing clinical time for staff, and they recognize the knock-on patient benefits from this. This model is easily scalable, and the clear development plan impressed the panel” – HSJ Digital Awards 2023 Panel of Judges.

“Winning this award is a testament to the dedication and hard work of our team and partners who have worked tirelessly to transform maternity services,” said Leon Stafford, Head of UK & Ireland for Digital Workforce. “We look forward to presenting this model to other organizations and building new impactful and groundbreaking solutions with PSTG and Portsmouth. This is significant national recognition for Digital Workforce, which has pioneered in building innovative automation solutions for Primary and Clinical automations in the UK since 2019.”

Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust has been working with Digital Workforce and PSTG to transform healthcare for over three years. The Trust has always been highly innovative and was a finalist at the HSJ Awards 2021 for the Emergency Ambulance Transfers solution, also with Digital Workforce and PSTG.

Digital Workforce congratulates all the finalists and commends their commitment to innovating healthcare services for patients and staff.

For further information, please contact: leon.stafford@digitalworkforce.com

About Digital Workforce Services Plc

Digital Workforce Services Plc is a leading business process automation services and technology solution provider globally. Digital Workforce Outsmart services and technology solution suite allow organizations to save costs, accelerate digitalization, increase revenue, improve customer experience, and gain competitive advantage. Globally, over 200 large customers use Digital Workforce’s services and technologies to transform their businesses with automation. Founded in 2015, Digital Workforce currently employs over 200 business automation specialists in the US, the UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Digital Workforce is publicly listed in Nasdaq First North Growth Market Finland.

The post Digital Workforce Propels Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust’s Intelligent Automation Transformation Programme in Maternity to Win Renowned HSJ Digital Award appeared first on Digital Workforce.

Digital Workforce Partners with one of the leading NHS Foundation Trusts to Improve Patient Experience with End-to-End Process Automation

The NHS Foundation Trust is on a digital transformation journey to streamline its patient access and triage process. Part of its initiative is to reduce triage times and improve the overall patient experience in the Acute and Emergency Department. Digital Workforce has been selected to deliver an end-to-end process automation solution that integrates client’s self-check desks with legacy back-end IT systems, making patient check-in faster and more efficient while ensuring the highest degree of patient safety.

Using Digital Workforce’s innovative Outsmart PASS solution, the client can speed up the registration process, inform nurses immediately about high-priority patients, and centrally monitor, orchestrate and control the registration lifecycle. The Outsmart PASS solution offers augmented capabilities to RPA to meet the business requirements of the client’s digital triage solution.

“We have previously worked with this client delivering RPA platform and training services. We are honoured to have been selected by them to deliver this Business Process Automation solution to enable the digital triage solution. Healthcare is our strategic focus area, and the UK is one of our key target markets. This extensive healthcare solution delivery to the UK’s healthcare markets is a significant milestone in our strategy execution. It will open new opportunities for us, ” said Jussi Vasama, CEO of Digital Workforce.

A seamless, fast, secure, and data-driven entry and registration process for the Acute and Emergency Departments is critical to patient outcomes and experience in busy hospitals. Overall, the collaboration between Digital Workforce and the client will offer faster check-in and processing times resulting in a better patient experience and increased patient safety.

For further information, please contact:
Jussi Vasama, CEO of Digital Workforce Services Plc, Tel. +358 50 380 9893

About Digital Workforce Services Plc
Digital Workforce Services Plc is a leading business process automation services and technology solution provider globally. Digital Workforce Outsmart services and technology solution suite allow organizations to save costs, accelerate digitalization, increase revenue, improve customer experience and gain competitive advantage. Globally, over 200 large customers use Digital Workforce’s services and technologies to transform their businesses with automation. Founded in 2015, Digital Workforce currently employs over 200 business automation specialists in the US, the UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Digital Workforce is publicly listed in Nasdaq First North Growth Market Finland.

The post Digital Workforce Partners with one of the leading NHS Foundation Trusts to Improve Patient Experience with End-to-End Process Automation appeared first on Digital Workforce.

We received an overwhelming response from the audience, with over 100 executives from over 30 Building Societies registering to attend and participate on the day. Our Building Society transformation experts have answered the questions submitted during the live event, covering a wide range of topics related to Intelligent Automation and its applications across the Building Society industry.

During the webinar, attendees had the opportunity to learn from leading Building Society experts and technology innovators Kevin Mowles (Building Society Business Transformation Consultant), Keith Woof (Head of Automation, Leeds Building Society), Iain Lister (IT & Change Executive, Mansfield Building Society) and Jack Lavington (RPA Manager, Monmouthshire Building Society) about the value Intelligent Automation can deliver across tedious, repetitive and time-consuming manual tasks and processes. Demonstrating how Intelligent Automation can be leveraged to optimise customer and employee experience, streamline operations and work execution, and improve process efficiency and speed from start to finish across the organisation, all while reducing costs, tasks prone to human error and work backlog.

The webinar especially highlighted how Intelligent Automation can enhance customer experience, from enquiry handling to reducing AHT (Average Handling Time) to delivering a more personalised customer journey.

Overall, the webinar provided valuable insights into how Building Societies can overcome digital disadvantages in a competitive market and adopt an efficient, reliable, and robust technology stack that will help them to maintain their position as trusted financial institutions in their communities. We are grateful to our expert panelists and attendees for making this a popular and insightful event.

Can you give us the best practical advice for starting our Automation journey and how we can avoid any complications?

If you’re starting on your automation journey, we recommend taking a practical approach that combines the following steps:

1. Clarify your goals and seek consensus among key stakeholders: Start by understanding your goals and involve business, technical, and subject matter experts. This will help you avoid any misunderstandings or disagreements down the line.
2. Choose a service with low commitment and cost: Avoid services that require long-term commitments or high spending, as these can put undue pressure on your team and lead to fear of failure. Instead, opt for services that allow you to learn at your own pace and experiment without breaking the bank.
3. Tap into the expertise of others: Be bold and ask for help or advice from other experts in the field. We’ve provided a network of resources to help you learn from others’ mistakes and avoid complications.

How long, on average, does it take to see the benefits and value of our automated processes? How long does it take, on average, to get a process up and running?

This is a real ‘piece of string’ question, so circumventing all the ifs, buts, and maybes here is as solid an answer as we can offer: To define, deliver, test and enable a medium-value process, we would recommend 8-12 weeks of effort. We typically expect such a process to be of >2FTE value, so if we agree that the Annual Benefit of such a process will be ~£80,000 and the cost of delivery will be ~£40,000, the ROI will be around six months of run-time.

How do I identify the processes that will offer the best ROI, and where can I find the best advice on how to get started?

If you’re solely interested in return on investment (ROI), focusing on automating high-volume processes with low variation is recommended. However, automating processes can be more complex than it may seem. Some processes can seem straightforward to automate but are not, and some processes will be helpful but just for a limited period. Our advice here is to see Automation as one of the tools of digitisation but by no means the only tool! As such, using the tool’s strengths is important according to the available process challenges. Automation is relatively quick to build and change, requiring limited development knowledge. So making a savings-product-based automation with great flexibility for future change embedded can be a significant investment of time and effort, even if the initial ROI is negligible. Working with an expert practitioner can help you adopt this mindset and better understand the process.

How do you identify the correct solution for the business? Is RPA a sticky plaster, and will we create technical debt?

Great question! The irony of introducing a new technology tool to reduce IT debt is not wasted on us! Our Service is Cloud-based (Intelligent Automation as a Service), and this seems a sensible approach to take. Finding a solution with a mature Service and run Management capability is also suitable because many UK Building Societies already have stretched IT Organisations. If you choose the right partner, you can embed proper support service level agreements (SLAs) in your deployed solution. Bringing your IT Organisation along for the journey is crucial. Involving them in the decision-making process will lead to a more successful outcome.

What key roles are needed for a successful automation project, and will it require much of the team’s time? Additionally, what are the options for outsourcing the building, implementing, and managing of automated processes if a company needs to set up its automation team?

To minimise the impact on your team’s time, we recommend involving key individuals such as an executive sponsor who can provide a big-picture perspective, a functional sponsor who can make the project happen; IT support to ensure success and a subject matter expert with intimate knowledge of the process being automated. Although finding a suitable subject matter expert may take some time, it is essential for the project’s success.

If setting up an automation team is not feasible, outsourcing the project can be a viable option. This approach is becoming increasingly popular in the current market as it reduces the costs and risks of setting up a Centre of Excellence (CoE). As long as you secure the necessary support for the abovementioned roles, you can outsource the project delivery and offset some of the risks in the contract. Doing so benefits you from an expert delivery that is shorter in delivery time and mitigates some project risk. Overall, outsourcing is a sensible approach.

How often should we review and look at ways to improve our automated processes? Who owns the automated process?

That’s a great question! The technology used in building a process can ensure that automations are balanced and prone to multiple fixes. Certainly, some of the skills of Automation is to deliver a low error or exception rate. Often automations designed with just one to two years duration in mind (“While we wait for the Enterprise Migration to absorb it”) are running five years later! As a general rule of thumb, a process review should take place within years one and two – and this process review may also consider additional functionality or change of requirements.

Can we scale our automation bots up and down in line with peaks in demand? 

Yes, our contracts allow you to go from many robots’ demand one month to zero the next. Please note that this is not typically the motivator when working with software vendors directly; their Shareholder promise is usually committed volume over multiple years of contracts.

We have already started using RPA but have hit roadblocks; how can we overcome this and find the ROI we were initially sold on?

This is a specialist area for Digital Workforce; we perform many ‘second surgery’ engagements. Like most things, it starts with an honest appraisal of the gap between the business case and reality and then identifying the root cause of delivery gaps. We would then focus on quick wins with extremely conservative RoI’s to rebuild confidence and engage the confidence cycle.

Can we use a blend of IA and AI tools to build a tailored solution that fits our purpose?

Yes, but you would be an outlier in this conservative sector. There are numerous automation opportunities available that can provide suitable foundational delivery of transformational technology solutions. Therefore, there’s no need to overreach by jumping straight into AI. We are taking a slightly different approach to the question, ‘Where do you take Automation from here?’. We aim to follow individual task automations and human interactions within longer and more meaningful customer journeys through your organization, such as the savings or mortgage journey. Within these journeys, there may be several processes worth automating, but an astonishing value (~70% of the entire Mortgage Process) could be orchestrated through several tools. This would rapidly improve the Customer experience while enabling volumes of Actionable Data. Keep an eye out for our future webinar on this topic!

Will Automation be compatible with our various tools and systems?

Yes, and we say this with the confidence of connecting to Green-screen Arabic banking applications.

What, if any, is the impact on our data security?

No data needs to leave your environment – but for reassurance purposes, look for an organisation that is ISO27001 certified and welcomes engagement with your information governance (IG) team.

What is the best deployment of intelligent Automation you have seen?

At Digital Workforce, we work a lot with healthcare, and some of the work in Cancer diagnosis and ‘rest of life’ monitoring is inspirational. Everyone knows someone going through the scenario (or has done themselves), and you can quickly recognise how technology, used in the right way through this process, improves patients’ outcomes and peace of mind. You also see time and money pouring back into the health service as a result.

How impactful has process automation been to your business, and how do you see it being utilised in the future? 

We use robots for sanction checking and onboarding prospects, partners, and Customers. If we used humans, we would take much longer to do less work accurately. Instead, we can deeply qualify whom we work with, which saves a great deal of long-term pain. Understanding how to ‘do different things’ with Automation, rather than ‘the same things more quickly,’ is a real turning point. The technology has been attached to the forefront of the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ by Lassity and Wilcox – and we do not believe this to be an underestimation.

How much education at an executive/board level was needed so leaders bought into the idea of RPA?

Massive variation in this area. For those in the early stages, we recommend this YouTube clip we made. Also, workshops with younger members of your Societies can encourage a sharing of modern understanding with those trying to solve traditional business challenges.

When establishing RPA teams, did you recruit existing staff from within the business or externally recruit specialist resources? Which would you say is most effective?

Recruit externally (or through a service partner) to go fast; recruit from within to go the longer distance. Culturally, internal recruits are aligned, have just been given a superpower to solve problems, and can be great advocates. A combination of these sources of expertise can co-exist, of course.

Does the maturity of the RPA approach at an organisation affect whether the business can approach process automation before task automation? Is it possible to look at process automation at the start of an RPA journey?

That’s a great question! As with Task Automation 7-8 years ago, Automation Fabric (or E2E Automation) does not discriminate between organisations with more or less mature estates. There is a trend that those organisations with mature Automation initiatives are further ahead than many others, but that is often because they have more forward-looking approaches to business change. If you are in an organisation with creaking systems, you can start the journey quickly and have a good volume of quick wins to offer for your efforts.

Curious to know more? Please don’t hesitate to contact our UK experts by sending an email to Harriet Thomas-Bailey!

About Digital Workforce Services

Digital Workforce Services Plc is the leading business automation platform and service provider globally. Digital Workforce Outsmart platform allows organisations to accelerate digitalisation, increase revenue, improve customer experience and gain competitive advantage. Globally, over 200 large customers use Digital Workforce’s platform and services to transform their businesses with automation. Founded in 2015, Digital Workforce currently employs over 200 business automation specialists in the US, the UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Digital Workforce is publicly listed in Nasdaq First North Growth Market Finland.

www.digitalworkforce.com

Who can offer advice?

Automation solutions are the most effective approach to revolutionising credit unions and while there are challenges to implementing automation, the benefits are clear. They should explore automation solutions to improve services, differentiate themselves from competitors, and maintain their position as trusted financial institutions in their communities.

Building Societies should seek advice from experts when looking to implement process automation to ensure a seamless transition and guarantee the proper steps have been taken. Experts can provide guidance on selecting the correct technology, mitigating risks, ensuring compliance with regulations, streamline the implementation of automation, and optimise the service to achieve maximum impact and benefit.

Digital Workforce is a global automation specialist working with several financial institutions, including banks and building societies, to automate repetitive and tedious tasks. We help streamline operations, and work execution and improve both customer and staff experience by delivering task-based and end-to-end automation solutions across loan origination and underwriting, opening accounts and onboarding, monitoring compliance and reporting, customer service and support, document management, data migration and more. With our expertise and experience, we help organisations develop a comprehensive automation strategy, implement automation solutions, and provide training and support to ensure the successful delivery and adoption of automation.

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