Gold Coast Health boosts patient care with UiPath automation

Gold Coast Health has implemented UiPath automation technology to streamline critical patient care and administrative processes across its Queensland health operations.

UiPath's automation is assisting Gold Coast Health in addressing challenges associated with processing times for patient referrals and broader workforce shortages, as well as bridging the communication gap between general practitioners and hospitals.

Peter Graves, Area Vice President ANZ for UiPath, commented on Gold Coast Health's adoption of the system and its implications for healthcare provision.

"Gold Coast Health is at the forefront of emerging agentic automation technology that unifies AI agents, robots and people on a single system to enable dynamic workflows and real-time decision making across complex processes. The result is improved staff experiences and enhanced patient care."

Kirsten Hinze, Senior Director, Digital Experience at Gold Coast Health, said the automation platform from UiPath has played a significant role in supporting organisational changes.

"Our partnership with UiPath has been instrumental in driving our digital transformation journey. By automating time-consuming administrative tasks, we can redirect valuable resources towards enhancing the quality of patient care."

Efficiency focus

With Gold Coast's population expanding rapidly, the health service identified a need to optimise its clinical and administrative processes.

The organisation's digital transformation strategy seeks to enable healthcare professionals to allocate more time to patient interaction by improving operational efficiency and ensuring quicker, authorised access to crucial information.

Gold Coast Health has automated over 19 different processes since September 2022. These range from operations involving 10 steps to complex workflows with 300 steps, spanning multiple internal IT systems. As a result, more than 40,000 hours of administrative work have been redirected to patient care annually, which has also had an impact on staff experience.

Clinical photography management

Gold Coast Health reported improvements in the management of clinical photography, allowing for faster access to medical images that support patient care. Ms Hinze detailed tangible outcomes in this area:

"The automation has reduced image accessibility time from 19 hours to just 2-30 minutes, a 99.8% improvement. This real-time access to clinical images has significantly enhanced patient care, particularly after-hours and on weekends."

Patient referral process

Automation has also affected the handling of referrals, with Gold Coast Health managing over 130,000 such cases each year. Processing has been accelerated by automating the transfer and entry of information across multiple systems, with the intention of reducing appointment wait times by one to two days and improving call centre operations.

This system demonstrated its value during a natural disaster, as explained by Gold Coast Health Nursing Director, Adult Outpatient Department, Jo Kanakis:

"During staffing issues caused by the cyclone, to come in and see the referral queue so low was a true blessing. In spite of the wind, flood and rain the automation continued along its way getting referrals sorted."

Ongoing transformation

Gold Coast Health attributes these results to an effective combination of technology and collaborative input from developers, testers and clinicians engaged in its digital transformation programme. The health provider continues to focus on maximising the value of its resources and prioritising sustainable innovation within its healthcare delivery model.