Amid the pandemic, the workload of healthcare employees has further increased and in such conditions ensuring the wellbeing of healthcare employees is indispensable.
Artificial intelligence has the capabilities of augmenting human data and responses which makes it one of the effective choices for healthcare companies to reduce employee workload and ensure employee wellbeing. According to a survey conducted by Accenture, AI applications are going to bring $150 billion in annual savings for the US healthcare economy by 2026.
ETHRWorld dwells into insights from HR leaders of the healthcare industry on leveraging artificial intelligence into the healthcare sector and ensuring employee wellbeing.
AI: An aid in black and blue for healthcare employees
During the pandemic artificial intelligence opened a pool of opportunities for healthcare companies to operate through reducing spending, creating customized ways for enhancing employees’ wellbeing and improving patient outcomes. The total public and private sector investment in healthcare AI is stunning: All told, it is expected to reach $6.6 billion by 2021, according to some estimates by Forbes.
Raghu Chandrashekar, Head – Human Resources, Siemens Healthineers India, said, ”Healthineers Forum is a survey tool we had introduced at Siemens Healthineers last year, which leverages the power of artificial intelligence. It enables us to keep a tab on the engagement of our people.”
He also apprised that analysis was done on the responses shared on the survey questions by the employees and a deep engagement can be created through that analysis among managers and employees.
Leveraging artificial intelligence enables quick communication of safety protocols that safeguard the wellbeing of employees. Tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom were widely used by healthcare companies to revamp team connections.
Talking about deploying AI to reduce the transactional activities done by the employees, Dr Amit Singh, Head – Corporate Human Resources, Aster DM Health, said, “The pandemic has in a way given us opportunities to live our promise of “We will treat you well” to our 20,000 employees across seven geographies. At one of our flagship hospitals, Medcare Hospitals & Medical Centres, we launched bilingual conversational AI agents Leo & Mira, which is the first chatbot of its kind in the healthcare industry that can perform end-to-end appointment management without the need for a human agent intervention.”
Furthermore, Singh added, “Through oracle solutions, we have also been able to digitize the entire employee journey and seamlessly connect us with doctors, nurses, retail agents across the group through one platform. We also launched Aster EDVantage, a Digital Health & Innovation learning intervention, for our employees across Aster DM to help the employees continue to upskill themselves in AI & digital health.”
Birth of modern and effective health initiatives with AI
With artificial intelligence, HR leaders in the healthcare industry can analyze each employee’s journey. They were able to understand the vaccination coverage of every employee and prioritize the safety of employees who are yet to be vaccinated, through artificial intelligence.
“We had recently introduced a chatbot to enhance real-time response to the various employee queries related to policies, benefits, and essential guidelines. The more frequently we use the chatbot, the smarter it gets, with more accurate and relevant responses. Our people found chatbots much faster and more efficient than waiting to connect with other people for answers. Having garnered attention as a chatbot for queries, we are also using the search data to understand the focus areas for us to further work and improve.” asserted Chandrashekar.
According to Singh, leveraging the Microsoft collaboration platforms, which have built-in AI’s enhanced collaboration, helps reduce the number of meetings and emailers.
Singh believes such practices increase employee productivity, enabling them to be closer to patients and customers while taking care of their wellbeing. “The AI embedded in the platforms helped us also set guidelines on restricting mailers outside office hours and introducing no meeting days at Aster,” he said.
Speaking about the fitness challenges for employees, Singh said, ”Walk to Win and Lose to Gain were organized to improve the physical wellbeing of our employees. Both the events saw wide-scale participation and we encouraged the employees to use their smartwatches to actively track their fitness such as counting the number of daily steps, calories burnt, the number of kilometres covered. As an organization, we covered 671,818,892 steps collectively, which roughly equates to 511,926 km.”
AI: Virtual therapist to discuss mental health issues
“No, Her portrayal of an intelligent agent is beyond artificial”, this famous line from the Oscar-nominated movie ‘Her’ based on artificial intelligence has become the reality of the virtual pandemic world. Especially in the healthcare space where companies like Aster DM have platforms like Serenity for employees to deal with anxiety and loneliness.
Singh said, “We partnered with Wysa to launch a wellbeing app called “Serenity” which provides free access to 24×7 clinically approved AI tools that help employees deal with anxiety and isolation. This helped our employees, especially the frontline, to cope effectively with the insurmountable stress that they would face every day in hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies.”
A study by ICMR reveals that especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, the healthcare employees suffer from anxiety and depression due to long work hours and staying away from families. It also focused on how stigma associated with addressing mental health issues in India makes the situation worse.
Speaking about addressing mental health issues, Singh propounded, ”We are in the process of utilizing the Yammer platform on Microsoft Teams and are creating communities targeted at mental health and wellbeing.”
“Employees are encouraged to take part in various mental health-related activities and share their feedback with a larger community. We are taking every step possible to normalize mental health-related challenges, thereby promoting wellbeing for our most employees,” he added.
Source: hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com
