Supporting the frontline: How healthcare workers can benefit from AI

Thankfully, modern technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) can be leveraged to help the healthcare industry overcome these challenges, with frontline workers able to benefit from the advantages of automation, integration, and data-driven insights.

In this blog, we explore some of the key ways healthcare workers can benefit from AI.

What is AI?

AI is a technology that can mimic human intelligence and perform tasks that normally require human intervention, such as learning, reasoning, and decision-making. In the healthcare industry, AI is already proving to be revolutionary, particularly in drug discovery. It helps analyse substance combinations and procedures that can be utilised to enhance human health and prevent pandemics. In fact, AI played an essential role in assisting healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 crisis and in the creation of vaccines against the virus, according to Forbes.

Furthermore, AI can help frontline workers in their day-to-day tasks to boost productivity. By leveraging AI, healthcare workers can benefit from the advantages of automation, integration, and data-driven insights, which can improve their workflows, collaboration, and skills. 

How AI can help overcome day-to-day challenges

One of the most common challenges that healthcare workers face is managing their schedules, especially when there are changes, emergencies, or staff shortages. This can cause stress, confusion, and delays, which can affect the quality of care and patient satisfaction.

AI can help healthcare workers overcome this challenge by automating and optimising their scheduling processes. AI can adapt to regular workflows and processes for updating and managing schedules, allowing leaders to promptly spot shift coverage options, compose messages swiftly, and respond to changes within a single system. It also enables employees to handle their schedules, take time off, exchange shifts, and see upcoming work times on an easy-to-use dashboard. This way, healthcare workers can have more control and flexibility over their schedules, while ensuring that shifts are covered and patients are attended to.

Another challenge that healthcare workers face is communicating effectively with their colleagues and supervisors, especially when they work in different locations, departments, or shifts. This can lead to information silos, miscommunication, and errors, which can compromise the safety and quality of care.

AI can help healthcare workers overcome this challenge by facilitating seamless and secure communication among providers and departments from one platform. With AI, healthcare workers can easily access and share relevant information with their colleagues and supervisors, such as patient records, lab results, treatment plans, and feedback. This way, healthcare workers can improve their collaboration, coordination, and performance, while delivering better outcomes for patients.

A final challenge that healthcare workers face is onboarding new hires, especially when they have to deal with a high turnover rate, a shortage of skilled workers, or a complex training process. This can result in a long and costly process, which can affect the efficiency and quality of operations.

AI can help healthcare workers overcome this challenge by streamlining and simplifying their processes. AI can automate onboarding steps and gather associated documents quickly, then provide these files to the trainee with reference links and resources populated in the response. This automation empowers managers to onboard employees faster, leading to better patient experiences and more efficient operations. In addition, AI can help new hires learn skills, and monitor the progress of trainees, providing feedback and suggestions for improvement. This way, healthcare workers can accelerate their learning curve, enhance their competencies, and increase their retention rate.