Intelligent automation to the rescue of healthcare’s global workforce shortages

Healthcare staff shortages are the new (ab)normal

The World Health Organization estimates a shortfall of 10 million health workers by 2030 globally. Many of these will be in low- and lower-middle-income countries, but even with higher salaries and better job prospects, the health workforce crisis is universal:

• Forty percent of doctors are close to retirement age in one-third of countries in Europe and Central Asia.

• England has an expected shortfall of between 260,000 and 360,000 doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals by 2036 despite the continuous increase in recruiting foreign-trained staff. There was a 66% increase in foreign-trained nurses between 2017–2022.

• Gulf countries are predicted to have a greater demand for healthcare than any other region in the world (a 240% increase over the next two decades). Saudi Arabia is estimated to need at least 20,000 more doctors by 2030 to ensure adequate staffing of facilities.

Increased documentation and administrative requirements make the shortage worse, further reducing the time available for patient care and leading to increased workload and burnout.

For example, in outpatient care, doctors can spend 49% of their time on electronic health records and desk work. High workload is a recognized occupational issue impacting quality of care and ultimately outcomes. In this article, we’ll look at how leaders in healthcare organizations are using automation and AI to reduce the burden on staff, improve decision-making, and increase workforce efficiency.

Strengthening clinical decision making

Therapeutic and technological advancements like new drugs and medical devices improve health outcomes at the patient level. However, healthcare systems should focus equal attention on improving operational efficiency and introducing the latest medical innovations when working to increase productivity.

Empowering the workforce to focus on tasks and activities where they can make the biggest difference reduces burnout and improves staff experience. But studies suggesting that physician empathy significantly impacts clinical outcomes point to an additional benefit of AI-infused automation. Physicians with better focus and time management mean better bedside manners and happier, healthier people all around—whether they’re care providers or patients.

Driving workforce efficiency

While improving staff experiences is crucial to retaining staff, many organizations cannot hire enough healthcare workers to cover day-to-day shifts. Increasingly, decision makers across the globe are acknowledging the potential of easing staff shortages via technology.

In the United Kingdom (UK), for example, national strategic plans of the National Health Service (NHS) include the Long Term Workforce Plan, Elective Care Recovery Plan, Primary Care Recovery Plan, and Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plan (published by NHS England since 2022). These set the vision and pace for operational improvements needed to bring the single-payer system back on track post-COVID. They explicitly call out the potential for automation and AI to replace manual human steps, reduce duplication, and achieve further efficiencies.

According to NHS estimates, if all NHS hospitals implemented automation in processes where time savings have been proven and validated, they could save more than 7.2 million hours annually, equivalent to over 965,000 working days. In primary care, practice teams spend 10–20% of their time on lower-value administrative work. With this in mind, the NHS plans to reduce the time required to tackle paperwork.

Taking action with AI + automation

UiPath has worked with healthcare providers globally to address this issue. For example, in one of five healthcare regions across Denmark, a single process within the pharmacy department used to take over one million keystrokes per year to complete. By automating the process, that number has been reduced to 40,000 keystrokes—a 96% decrease.

And that's just one example of how healthcare organizations are combining AI and automation.

Here's another: there simply aren’t enough call handlers to answer patient questions about general health or queries received through care management programs for chronic conditions. Instead of trying to navigate through healthcare websites, whether they’re legitimate or potentially unsafe ones, patients can be supported by an AI chatbot. The chatbot can point the patient to the right information for their condition.

AI-powered chatbots can also help take on the complex management of polypharmacy. Patients with multiple conditions, some of which may be complex, are at higher risk of adverse effects of interactions between medications. An additional layer of risk is added for patients with cognitive decline who may struggle with dosage and medication management. Primary care practitioners are often in the best position to consider their patient’s needs holistically and carefully adjust, or even remove, medications that may cause harm. However, given the lack in capacity and staffing, this complex task is not always undertaken. AI has been shown to help, given the pressure on primary care practitioners.

Staff can benefit more directly, too. AI-based medical staff scheduling has the potential to get rid of a major bane of doctors’ lives and give them the ability to better manage their personal time and holidays. Healthcare systems like NHS England have acknowledged the issue and asked hospitals to ensure better staff scheduling management.

Addressing workforce questions about AI + automation

There have been legitimate concerns about the impact of technology on the day-to-day experience of healthcare staff, both clinical and administrative.

Sometimes the user interface of tech solutions is suboptimal, making them hard to use or learn. The main issue, however, has been that healthcare organizations often attempt to solve point problems with point solutions. This results in unwieldy tech stacks with significant technical debt.

According to the Phillips Future Health Index 2024 survey results, most healthcare leaders (92%) agree that using technology to automate repetitive tasks or processes is critical for addressing staff shortages in healthcare. However, two-thirds (65%) acknowledged that their staff were skeptical about its use.

A PwC report commissioned by the UK government predicts that the risk of job displacement in healthcare from AI and related technologies is lower than in most other sectors. And when set against the backdrop of escalating patient demand, the report anticipated that we will see the largest net employment increases of any sector over the next 20 years, with technology largely proving complementary.

Similar to other industries, professionals in healthcare will have to adapt to new ways of working. AI-powered automation is expected to enable staff to spend less time on routine administrative work and shift their attention to areas where they add more value, like direct care and patient-facing activities. To meaningfully engage with staff and alleviate concerns, automation leaders in public hospitals recommend speaking to service managers and asking them to work with their teams to identify process bottlenecks that can be automated, rather than push top-down solutions. This way automation works for the workers.

Targeting efforts for the biggest impact AI-powered automation has the potential to transform healthcare across a range of core technologies, patient pathways, and processes. But with the effort it takes to deploy new innovations, decision makers must target efforts where they can make the biggest difference at the system-level, for both staff and patients.

AI-powered automation can reduce and reverse the impact of growing staff shortages globally as demand increases due to population changes.

For the latest on AI + automation in healthcare, visit our healthcare page.