When it comes to digital transformation, healthcare rarely leads the conversation. In fact, it’s often grouped with government agencies as an example of outdated systems and clunky workflows. We’ve all experienced it, sitting in a waiting room, filling out paper forms for the third time, wondering, “How is this still happening?”
Unfortunately, these inefficiencies aren’t just a minor annoyance. They’re a sign of something much deeper and more problematic.
A 2021 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that more than 70% of hospitals were still using fax machines. In an age of robotic surgery and AI-driven diagnostics, critical patient data is still being shared through a decades-old technology.
Why does fax persist?
- A lingering sense of HIPAA compliance “safety”
- EHR systems that don’t integrate easily
- Deeply ingrained legacy workflows
The result is a slow-moving, error-prone environment that impacts everything from admin tasks to patient care. And while these inefficiencies might seem like mild frustrations, they can have serious consequences.
Broken Workflows Can Lead to Real Harm
Let’s take a closer look at patient throughput—the rate at which patients move through their care journey. Every delay in check-in, diagnosis, or discharge creates a bottleneck that impacts the entire system.
Consider a standard doctor’s appointment. You check in, fill out forms, then wait. A nurse calls you in, asks the same questions. You wait again. Then the doctor enters and asks those same questions all over again. This repetitive cycle creates wasted time for the patient, and wasted resources for the clinic.
Executives see this as a financial problem. Improving patient flow can increase revenue by enabling more appointments per day. But there’s also a human cost. Bottlenecks in care can lead to dangerous delays.
A BBC report from Wales highlighted a rise in ambulance response times for amber-level emergencies like chest pain and strokes. Response times jumped from 11 minutes to over 2 hours. One of the causes? Ambulances were stuck waiting outside hospitals because beds weren’t available. This is a classic patient throughput failure. It shows how inefficient workflows aren’t just inconvenient, they can be life-threatening.
The Solution Isn’t More Technology. It’s Smarter Processes.
To truly address the inefficiencies that plague healthcare, the solution isn’t simply layering on more technology, it’s about rethinking how technology is used. Too often, healthcare organizations rely on a patchwork of siloed systems that don’t talk to each other. This creates fragmented workflows, redundant data entry, and frustrating experiences for both patients and providers. By consolidating vendors and adopting multi-functional platforms, health systems can streamline operations and eliminate the friction caused by disjointed tools.
Inefficient health care workflows are a pervasive problem that affects providers and patients. However, the increased availability of health information technology (IT) tools and systems provides opportunities to streamline workflow through automation. – Health IT Workflow Automation
Integrated software solutions that span the full patient journey, from intake and check-in to clinical documentation, scheduling, and discharge, help create a seamless flow of information. This improves data accuracy, reduces delays, and enables faster, more informed decision-making. When systems work together, so do teams, and that directly impacts patient throughput. Instead of repeating the same questions at every stage, staff can focus on moving patients through their care efficiently and safely.
Vendor consolidation also brings practical benefits to healthcare organizations struggling with limited resources. Managing fewer platforms means less time spent on training, IT support, and maintenance. It also helps ensure compliance, as modern all-in-one systems are designed with security and regulatory requirements in mind. The result is a simpler, more resilient digital infrastructure that supports, not hinders, clinical and operational goals.
Ultimately, improving patient throughput and care quality isn’t just a technical challenge; it’s a strategic imperative. By reducing reliance on outdated tools and embracing smarter, more unified systems, healthcare can finally begin to shed its reputation for clunky workflows and deliver the kind of streamlined, high-quality care that today’s patients and providers deserve.
And at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if you follow this advice on an economic or a moral level, as long as we’re using the resources available to us to stop preventable harm, in this case a backlog of ambulances waiting for beds, everybody wins.
Sarah Galyon, MHIM, CPC, LSSGB
Sarah Galyon is a Senior Director of Healthcare Solutions at Formstack. She has 17 years of experience in the healthcare industry and formerly worked for a large academic medical center and health system, where she spent over a decade specializing in process improvement and digital transformation in both the clinical and health administrative areas.
