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THE USAGE OF ROBOTIC AUTOMATION (RPA) DATA TRANSFER ROBOT IN THE STAFF VACCINATION PROGRAMME LED BY OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH SERVICES
Newcastle OHS, The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, UK
As part of annual winter flu campaign, Newcastle OHS co-ordinate the delivery of COVID-19 and Flu vaccinations for staff of approximately 15,000.
Learning from previous vaccination campaigns, we identified that a significant amount of time was spent logging into multiple applications and recording the vaccinations.
Aims
- To reduce the administration time required by the vaccinator for each vaccination encounter
- To effectively and accurately ensure data transfer of vaccination records between applications
- To learn and develop skills in using automation software
Methods
When delivering the vaccine, vaccinators input the details for each vaccination using a newly designed digital vaccination form, this form has capacity to pull data from Electronic Staff Record (ESR) which is beneficial in ensuring accurate uptake reporting for the Trust.
The vaccinations are also recorded into the National Immunisation & Vaccination System, a national portal for the recording of COVID-19 Booster and Flu vaccinations, which enables the vaccinations to be visible by the persons General Practitioner.
For the 2023/24 staff vaccination programme the team sought to utilise an RPA data transfer ‘bot’ to transfer each vaccination entry into the persons NIVS record using an application called Automation Anywhere.
Results
Over 21,000 vaccinations provided to staff throughout the programme with over 75% of recorded vaccination data subsequently transferred using the RPA robot.
Conclusion
Feedback received from vaccinating staff was very positive in terms of reducing administrative time allowing greater focus on patient care. The use of automation for data transfer duties enabled this with only 25% requiring manual inputting.
References:
What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
Accessed via: What is RPA? Robotic Process Automation | Automation Anywhere (Last accessed 22 01 2024)
