Already benefiting from a partnership with a global technology leader, the Queensland health service is about to go one step further.
Gold Coast Health has become the first Queensland health and hospital service to use agentic automation, partnering with New York Stock Exchange-listed tech company UiPath.
GCH and UiPath began their relationship in September 2022, successfully automating over 19 processes within the service, ranging from simple 10-step operations to complex 300-step workflows across multiple systems, resulting in over 40,000 hours of administrative time being redirected to patient care annually, which has also improved the employee experience for healthcare workers.
Now the partnership is introducing agentic automation to deliver real-time patient care, which both parties believe will help set a new benchmark for healthcare delivery in Australia.
“Gold Coast Health is at the forefront of emerging agentic automation technology that unifies AI agents, robots and people on a single system to enable dynamic workflows and real-time decision making across complex processes,” said UiPath’s area vice-president ANZ, Peter Graves.
“The result is improved staff experiences and enhanced patient care.”
Even before the introduction of agentic automation, GHS was seeing big benefits from its contract with UiPath.
One notable success has been in clinical photography management.
“The automation has reduced image accessibility time from 19 hours to just 2-30 minutes, a 99.8% improvement,” said GCH senior director for digital experience, Kirsten Hinze.
“This real-time access to clinical images has significantly enhanced patient care, particularly after-hours and on weekends.”
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The referrals process, a critical area that involves handling over 130,000 patient referrals each year, has also significantly improved through automation, she said. By automating the entry of referral information across multiple systems, GCH aims to reduce appointment wait times by one to two days and improve call centre efficiency.
The automated referrals system already proved its value when GCH staff were unable to access their offices due to ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.
GCH nursing director of the adult outpatient department, Jo Kanakis, said:
“During staffing issues caused by the cyclone, to come in and see the referral queue so low was a true blessing. In spite of the wind, flood and rain the automation continued along its way getting referrals sorted.”
Now, with the introduction of agentic automation, GCH has high hopes for continued improvements.
“Our partnership with UiPath has been instrumental in driving our digital transformation journey,” said Ms Hinze.
“By automating time-consuming administrative tasks, we can redirect valuable resources towards enhancing the quality of patient care.”