Featured Use Case
A home health provider was experiencing large demand for their services at a time when they were struggling with the common challenge of hiring and scheduling caregivers. With demand exceeding supply, it was critical to make the best use of available caregiver time and keep them happy with their appointments.
The challenge was that scheduling the appointments in an optimal fashion was almost impossible for the human teams. They needed to factor in availability, preferences, location, and more for both the caregivers and clients, leading to a dizzying combination of possibilities.
The result was a tremendous administrative burden that still produced a sub-optimal outcome. As a result, caregivers were traveling way too long to see patients, they weren’t getting the schedules they wanted, shifts were going unfilled, and appointment utilization was low, all of which left revenue on the table.
Simple Fractal presented the idea that we could assist with the scheduling process through automation with intelligent RPA bots. How can this be done? It’s actually quite straightforward. If the client can explain to us how the scheduler makes decisions, we can automate our bots to do the same thing! So, we dug in and defined the work through business process workflows and decision trees.
After launching the pilot, our client reported that the bots were making successful matches that their own staff would have never thought of. For example, a caregiver got matched to a client that was 50 miles away. Previously, a scheduler wouldn’t have thought to suggest her because she was so far away, but our bot suggested her because distance was a low-weighted preference for her. The caregiver was happy to take the shift, the family is elated to have a caregiver, and the agency is delighted with the accelerated revenue.
Here are just a few of the ways our RPA solution helped our client in this case:
Caregiver satisfacation
Caregivers are matched better, so they are happier.
Shift quality
Higher-quality shifts make it so much easier to hire service providers, which is a critical element to the client’s growth and success.
Bottom line
Revenue is increasing because of more filled shifts.