A new range of digital robots have been launched to help ease the load on New Zealand healthcare practices.

ProCare, a leading healthcare provider, is behind the development of digital robots which aim to relieve some of the ever increasing administrative burdens that general practices face.

The launch includes five robots with a focus on inbox management tasks and cardiovascular disease risk assessments.

The robots can complete a number of specific actions, whether that’s filing messages that don’t require clinical review or decision, or using patient information to calculate cardiovascular disease risk score and complete follow up actions.

This frees up clinicians’ time to review information that needs their personal attention and assessment.

“After months of trials and testing, we are thrilled to launch these robots to our practices to help support them with their workload,” Bindi Norwell, ProCare Group Chief Executive, said.

“Using innovative technology to alleviate some of the administrative burden on our practices will go a long way to ensuring they can instead focus on caring for their patients.”

Norwell said healthcare practices had been dealing with an influx of inbox messages and administrative tasks that have been steadily increasing over the last few years, as well as an increasing population with complex needs.

This has resulted in many staff putting in extra unpaid hours to try work through the backlog.

“Not only is this unsustainable, but it means our patients are dealing with longer wait times and less availability of appointments.

“We know how important getting timely access to healthcare is, especially as we near the winter cold and flu season.”

The goal is for the robots to be the solution to this increasing problem, Norwell said.

Norwell said healthcare practices had been dealing with an influx of inbox messages and administrative tasks that have been steadily increasing over the last few years.
The five robots launched include Cardiovascular Risk Assessments, Screening FIT (helps manage bowel screen results), Specialist Referral Acknowledgement (helps manage CVDRA an automatic duplicate message for Specialist Referrals), Inpatient Updates (helps manage communications from the DHB for inpatient care, and Covid-19 related tasks).

ProCare was also working with other key stakeholders to help expand the service to other platforms and regions.

However, Norwell said in the recent round of funding from the Government, primary health organisations got a 0% increase in management fees.

This meant that innovations like this could be at risk and if the government wanted the likes of ProCare to continue providing such innovative solutions to help support general practices, then it will need to consider increases in the future for primary health organisations, she said.

Prior to launch the robots were tested and put through their paces to ensure they could assist with assessments accurately and safely.

“Throughout the trials, our robot worked across practices and assessed CVDRA results for more than 15,000 patients over 5 months. This contributed to reducing the number of overdue CVDRAs by 20% or more for many practices in the trial,” Paul Roseman, ProCare General Manager of Strategic Developments, said.

“Our practices have been calling out for additional workforce support and this is just one way we can help them.”

Roseman said the robots didn’t need sick leave or holidays, are accurate and work around the clock helping to improve efficiency in practices.

It’s an extension of a practice’s existing staff, he said.

“Giving clinicians time to focus on what matters – seeing patients face to face.”

To find out more about the ProCare robots you can contact indicihelpdesk@procare.co.nz