How automation gives back one of healthcare’s most valuable resources — time

Within healthcare, there are few, if any, resources more precious and closely managed than time. As many healthcare providers worldwide will tell you, there is simply not enough time to care for all their patients with quality and compassion and, simultaneously, complete mandatory tasks, such as record reviews, documentation and insurance paperwork. Globally, the source of this problem is two-fold: an ongoing shortage of healthcare workers, including nurses, physicians and all allied health staff, and an increase in demand due to an ageing global population with growing healthcare needs. Both are compounded by an antiquated underlying architecture in healthcare that inhibits innovation and transformative solutions.

Highly developed countries are not immune from these challenges. In the US, the shortage is expected to reach 187,000 physicians and 63,000 registered nurses in the coming decades, with even more staff needed to meet unaddressed healthcare issues. In France, more physicians are retiring than starting their practice. In England, 10% of nursing and 7% of physician positions are vacant, while less than a third of NHS staff feel their hospital is adequately staffed to provide excellent care. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many patients across the world saw longer and growing wait times for care.

At the same time, digital tools intended to create greater efficiency and save time have, in some cases, become an added source of administrative burden for care teams. With doctors reporting a nearly 60-hour workweek in a physically and mentally demanding profession, it is little wonder that almost 50% also report at least one symptom of burnout.

While we must revamp and shorten educational curricula to recruit and train more healthcare workers, hiring and training alone cannot solve this global shortfall of healthcare workers. Healthcare organizations – alongside governments and other agencies – must find innovative ways to reduce the administrative burden, while expanding access to lifesaving care and expertise to patients in need.

We have previously advocated for a global move to a platform model of healthcare. As part of that move, few tools have shown as much promise to address these problems as intelligent automation, a combination of digital tools, robotics and AI that streamline or even eliminate human involvement in administrative processes. When these tools are deployed within a platform model of care, we have already seen how they can reduce healthcare workers’ overall workload, while providing greater access for patients.

In addition, the next generation of powerful, emerging AI tools – particularly agentic AI, a dynamic class of AI that can autonomously carry out tasks with high fidelity – is expanding what was previously possible by creating automated AI tools that are dynamic, responsive and adaptable to each user’s needs. Agentic AI – paired with existing automation technology – has the potential to streamline administrative tasks while extending healthcare workers’ expertise to reach more patients without additional strain, enabling the most essential task of any healthcare system: providing direct care to patients.

Because no nation or health system is immune to workforce shortages or time-constrained staffing, many are turning to innovative automation tools to streamline processes, improve worker experiences and make healthcare careers more attractive overall. In Taiwan, a single-payer system where complex rules require significant work to accurately submit expenses, researchers have used software robots to reduce the time it takes to complete these tasks by 31%. In the US, autonomous robotic vehicles deliver meals and pharmaceuticals in hospitals and clinics, freeing up care teams to focus on patients instead of time-consuming logistical details. In Belgium, AI-tools help streamline complex procedures, like cardiac catheterization, by analyzing imagery before and after procedures and pre-populating reports. Ghana, which faces a shortage of providers, particularly radiologists, is home to a tech startup that has developed an AI-powered diagnostic tool that is effective at diagnosing conditions like cardiomegaly and can do so more accurately than many trained professionals – expanding access to critical diagnostic care to patients while offloading tasks from overstretched radiologists.

At Mayo Clinic, our physicians and researchers have shown how AI-powered automation can save time while improving outcomes for head-and-neck radiotherapy. With our partners, we are also refining AI ambient listening technology to automate documentation for nurses, while robots are assisting in routine tasks, like linen delivery. Yet, it is also clear that we – and the entire global healthcare system – are just at the beginning of realizing the benefits of intelligent automation on our patients and staff.

As we look to the future, rapidly developing automation technology holds even greater potential to positively transform how healthcare workers provide care and how patients receive it. For example, fully realized agentic AI tools can provide personalized high-level services to patients, helping them navigate complex health systems and processes. For physicians and providers, these tools can likewise extend their expertise and insight through agentic digital twins that reliably and accurately answer patient questions on diagnoses, outcomes and results. Digital pathology and radiology platforms can extend the reach of urgent diagnostic services to underserved populations and even entire nations, while purpose-built infrastructure will allow for greater robotic automation of routine tasks.

However, none of these possibilities are necessarily assured. While moving forward without a patient-centred approach is dangerous and will lead to harm, so is delaying moving forward to wait for complete clarity. Patients and healthcare workers need non-incremental solutions today. The health sector must, without delay, take ownership of this opportunity, lead in establishing codes of conduct for intelligent automation and partner with automation innovators and government agencies to co-create solutions and develop pragmatic regulations. Patient and healthcare worker voices must remain central to how these tools are developed, validated and deployed into the healthcare workstream for the maximal and equitable benefit of all. The time to lead is now.