• Huron Companies
    • Innosight
    • Studer Education
  • Submit RFP
  • Careers
  • Technology Partners
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Favorites
Huron Logo Huron Logo
  • Expertise
    • Business Operations
    • Care Transformation
    • Consumer Transformation
    • Digital
    • Organizational Transformation
    • Research Enterprise
    • Strategy & Innovation
    • Upcoming Huron Events

      View Events
  • Industry
    • Education
    • Energy & Utilities
    • Financial Services
    • Healthcare
    • Industrials & Manufacturing
    • Life Sciences
    • Public Sector
    • See All
    • We collaborate with the best and brightest in technology.

      Learn More About Our Partners
  • Our Experts
    • View All Expert Bios
    • Find an expert specialized in your industry.

      Book a Speaker
  • Insights
    • Articles
    • Case Studies
    • Research
    • Get the latest insights and updates from our experts.

      View All Insights
  • Investor Relations
    • News
    • Events
    • Financial
    • Stock Info
    • Corporate Governance
    • See All
    • Learn more about Huron and our most recent financial results.

      Investor Presentation
  • Contact Us
  • Expertise
    Expertise
    Business OperationsCare TransformationConsumer TransformationDigitalOrganizational TransformationResearch EnterpriseStrategy & Innovation

    Upcoming Huron Events

    View Events
  • Industry
    Industry
    EducationEnergy & UtilitiesFinancial ServicesHealthcareIndustrials & ManufacturingLife SciencesPublic SectorSee All

    We collaborate with the best and brightest in technology.

    Learn More About Our Partners
  • Our Experts
    Our Experts
    View All Expert Bios

    Find an expert specialized in your industry.

    Book a Speaker
  • Insights
    Insights
    ArticlesCase StudiesResearch

    Get the latest insights and updates from our experts.

    View All Insights
  • Investor Relations
    Investor Relations
    NewsEventsFinancialStock InfoCorporate GovernanceSee All

    Learn more about Huron and our most recent financial results.

    Investor Presentation
  • Careers
    Careers
    Join Our Talent CommunitySearch Open PositionsBenefits
  • About Huron
    About Huron
    The Huron DifferenceOur People & ValuesMaking an ImpactOur ResultsInvestor RelationsLocations
  • Help & Support
    Help & Support
    Contact UsSubmit an RFPBook a Speaker
  • Privacy
    Privacy
    Privacy StatementTerms & ConditionsCookies PolicyFraudulent OffersLabor Condition Applications
  • Contact Us
  • Favorites
    Recent Favorites
    You have no saved content.

Robots: Healthcare Product Today, Driver of Future Growth

Favorite Bookmark

David Devine

Download Email Subscribe Print

Healthcare organizations are recognizing robots as valuable assets for getting tasks done more efficiently and effectively, and at a lower cost in numerous areas of the organization. However, the true value of robots will occur when organizations no longer use robots to simply perform tasks once done by people but leverage them as an enabler for operational and clinical success.

Improve Quality, Gain Market share

Robotic surgery has become increasingly common with approximately 4,000 robots performing 750,000 operations. While studies on robotic surgery vary in highlighting whether they truly deliver better results, adoption is growing. For physicians, robots offer the promise of increasing quality by reducing human error and for patients, they offer the benefit of a less invasive procedure with a shorter recovery time.

Robots should be looked at as a transformative capability for their organization and a key driver of innovation.”

The potential of robotic surgery doesn’t lie in the surgery experience of today, it offers the opportunity for reaching new consumers. Just like telemedicine allows physicians to see patients hundreds of miles away, the use of robots to perform remote surgeries could move surgery outside the four walls of your hospital and into ambulatory surgery centers in neighboring towns or the operating rooms of rural hospitals. While the technology for tele-robotics exists today, the business strategy and operational elements have yet to be developed by healthcare organizations in order to make this a reality.

For healthcare leaders, a mindset around how to best adopt tele-surgery could be viewed as a growth enabler that could play into their strategic planning for the future.

Improve the Consumer Experience, Develop a New Healthcare Experience

Healthcare organizations are feeling similar pressure to provide a better consumer experience that rivals the experience that consumers have in other industries. However, as organizations simultaneously face increased pressure on their bottom line, leaders often struggle to allocate funding for investments and human capital that could better meet consumer needs. Within the retail and hospitality industries robots have been used to achieve both objectives.

They’re using robots to answer basic questions of consumers in an immediate fashion and triage difficult questions to the appropriate person. For example, robots act as greeters in airport restaurants, and help travelers navigate to their appropriate gates and locate amenities around the airport. These same principles could be applied to the healthcare industry. Robots can address these growing consumer demands by creating solutions to assist consumers with wayfinding around your organization, and answering their basic billing questions and other common inquiries. By incorporating robots as point solutions for customer service, you can create a better experience by simply giving consumers the information they need at the time and place they need it while also helping you increase productivity across the organization. This also frees up your employees from needing to execute these tasks.

As care continues to move outside the four walls of the hospitals, robots can serve as the platform that enables care delivery to transform to be more consumer focused. Devices like Alexa are poised to offer consumers the ability to receive medication reminders, directly connect them to their physician for virtual care and answer simple medical questions for consumers. In Japan, robots are a solution to their shortage of caregivers while simultaneously helping consumers age-in-place by offering some components of care without the need for human intervention. Robots could bring medication to the consumer, perform simple tasks instructed to them by those in a remote monitoring location and even communicate with the consumer to provide social interaction. This will enable care to be delivered in new ways.

Realize Efficiencies, Transform Your Business Model

Robots are delivering food, cleaning rooms and automating aspects of the revenue cycle and supply chain within health systems. These are tasks that many humans are performing today, but when automated they create a more efficient business process and allow staff to focus on more strategic work. Robots are gaining widespread adoption in niche areas, where they are used to drive down cost.

Robots coupled with sensors could not only lower costs today but transform the way you operate in the future. An example from another industry is at John Deere where rather than focusing on simply improving the process today, they’re invested in sensors on their machines that harness data in order to make more informed decisions for the future. With sensors, they’re able to assist farmers with forecasting while simultaneously helping to predict the demand for spare parts for the farming products they sell. Similarly, in healthcare, sensors coupled with robots could generate insights that create an integrated network which provides actionable insights specific to the consumer. This data can be another building block that moves healthcare organizations from improving individual outcomes to improving outcomes on a global scale.

For healthcare providers, robots should be looked at as a transformative capability for their organization and a key driver of innovation. This requires thoughtful planning around how you can leverage them to be more than just task masters but to truly become growth enablers.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

To use robotics as a solution for today’s challenges and a key component of your strategy for building a successful healthcare system of tomorrow, you should:

Think differently.

Reimagine how your organization could operate if robots were performing routine tasks across your organization.

Plan differently.

Look for opportunities to address strategic priorities or free up your staff’s time to focus on these priorities with robotics.

Act differently.

Make strategic investments in robotic technology that won’t just serve as a function of increasing efficiencies today but will also enable transformation in the future.

Favorite Bookmark
JS Inject Download Email Subscribe Print
Digital Strategy and Innovation Healthcare Academic Health System or Hospital Ambulatory or Pre-acute Cancer Center or System Children Health System or Hospital Community Health System or Hospital Critical Access Hospital Long-term Care or Post-acute National Health System Physician Practice or Medical Group Professional Association Public Health System or Hospital Regional Health System or Hospital Women Health System or Hospital

Robots: Healthcare Product Today, Driver of Future Growth

  • David Devine

    David Devine

    Managing Director

    Contact This Expert Read My Bio

Related Work

  • Use Digital to Improve Healthcare Today While Creating a New Tomorrow

    Read More

    Healthcare organizations must leverage digital technology such as apps, kiosks, AI and IoT to improve the core business while positioning it for future success.

  • The Interoperability Imperative in Healthcare Today

    Read More

    Increasing interoperability is critical for the future of healthcare. Organizations must begin to align data collection and integrate technology platforms.

View All

We use cookies on our website to provide you with a more personalized digital experience, enable website functionality and understand the performance of our site. You may review our Privacy Statement and our Cookies Policy. By using this site you agree to our use of cookies. I Accept

  • Expertise
    • Business Operations
    • Care Transformation
    • Consumer Transformation
    • Digital
    • Organizational Transformation
    • Research Enterprise
    • Strategy & Innovation
  • Industry
    • Education
    • Energy & Utilities
    • Financial Services
    • Healthcare
    • Industrials & Manufacturing
    • Life Sciences
    • Public Sector
  • About Huron
    • The Huron Difference
    • Our People & Values
    • Making an Impact
    • Our Results
    • Investor Relations
    • Locations
  • Help & Support
    • Contact Us
    • Submit an RFP
  • Careers
    • Search Open Positions
    • Join Our Talent Community
    • Our Commitment
  • Legal
    • Privacy Statement
    • Terms & Conditions
    • Studer Education: Subscription Product Terms of Use
    • Cookies
    • Fraudulent Offers
    • Labor Condition Applications
Huron Logo
  • LinkedIn Icon
  • Twitter Icon
  • Facebook Icon
  • Instagram
  • Youtube Icon

© 2022 Huron Consulting Group Inc. and affiliates. Huron is a global consultancy and not a CPA firm, and does not provide attest services, audits, or other engagements in accordance with standards established by the AICPA or auditing standards promulgated by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB”). Huron is not a law firm; it does not offer, and is not authorized to provide, legal advice or counseling in any jurisdiction.