CLN Daily 2024
Many laboratories are facing two simultaneous challenges to creating efficient workflows—severe labor shortages and surging test volumes—and the intensity of those demands only exacerbates staff burnout and attrition. Despite extensive discussion about how to recruit, train, and retain new laboratorians, staffing needs at many facilities remain largely unmet. In the meantime, laboratory leaders must embrace creative strategies for working smarter and not harder to address the existing crisis.
In the Monday afternoon session, “Automating Digital Workflows in the Clinical Laboratory Using Robotic Process Automation,” Simone Arvisais-Anhalt, MD, and Daniel Holmes, MD, illustrated how robotic process automation (RPA) software can be used to perform repetitive computer tasks within the clinical laboratory.
Arvisais-Anhalt noted that the use of RPA software is well established in other industries for high-volume tasks that do not require “proper” data interfaces or where data interfaces are not available. However, it is still relatively uncommon in healthcare professions. She explained that RPA can imitate keyboard strokes, mouse moves, clicks, image and character recognition, and switching between applications.
RPA is also frequently utilized for simple tasks that require an action to occur at regular time intervals, such as generating a daily or weekly report. After discussing the differences among code-based, low-code, and no-code RPAs, she led participants through the process of developing a workflow in UiPath that would copy information from an Excel file (name and birth month), paste it into an online application (Unicorn Name Finder), and then copy the resulting information (unicorn names) back into the Excel file. This simple workflow illustrated how easily RPA could be used to automate routine processes.
During the second half of the presentation, Holmes detailed how automating repetitive actions with software can improve patient safety and health outcomes while allowing laboratory professionals to focus on more complex or subjective work. For example, one of his first experiences with RPA was with using the language “AutoHotkey” to automate the login of 2,500 research specimens into the laboratory information system. This task, which would have taken approximately 80 hours of technologist time to complete, was accomplished after just three hours of script writing and five hours of script execution — a 90% reduction in human work! This process also eliminated transcription errors.
Throughout the presentation, both speakers highlighted numerous open-source and commercial software tools attendees could use, including Selenium, UI.Vision, Microsoft Power Automate, TruBot, UiPath, and many more. After the speakers demonstrated UiPath and Microsoft Power Automate, participants had a better appreciation of the types of activities that could benefit from RPA and the ease with which RPA could be adopted.
Increasingly, RPA is being used in healthcare, both in the clinical laboratory and beyond, to scale workforce capabilities and meet increasing demands in the context of limited resources. Attendees at this session learned that there are many simple, repetitive tasks in the laboratory environment that may be considered “low-hanging fruit” for automation. They also discovered numerous commercial and open-source RPA resources that are available to try.