TechTheDay

The healthcare industry is increasingly turning towards artificial intelligence to address the challenges the sector faces, but the term is broad and covers various technologies. The first thing that comes to mind whenever people think of AI is intelligent automation services or RPA. They might also think of computer vision, NLP, machine learning, and many others. However, there’s a relatively new type of technology within this umbrella that you may be unfamiliar with called cybernetics.

Cybernetics is the scientific field that studies systems or communications between living things and machines. It assists or augments workers with tasks like providing helpful recommendations, information, and more. With that said, here are some of the ways in which cybernetics is changing the way healthcare providers work.

Centralizing and easing access to information

There’s no denying that the learning curve in healthcare can be steep, no matter what function or area you’re in. It involves a considerable amount of nuanced details and many systems with individual interfaces and log-ins daily. Yet, more often than not, instructions and insights are held in the employees’ minds, in binders, or in post-it notes. Through cybernetics, it’s possible to create centralized access to all this information, ensuring not only smooth operations if a worker suddenly leaves the organization but also aid in the standardization and speed of onboarding new employees.

Improves employee satisfaction

These past couple of years have been a challenge for the healthcare industry, showing that the sector was severely underprepared for the global COVID-19 pandemic. And now more than ever, employees need to have some good news. Thankfully, cybernetics can give them some by providing them with what they need to do their work more efficiently and quickly. Deploying cybernetic solutions can help prevent worker dissatisfaction as a result of employee burnout, ensuring that they’re able to get the information they need to deliver the services patients expect.

Moreover, it minimizes—if not mitigates—human error from occurring because it can automate tasks that would otherwise have been redundant, repetitive, and tedious. In doing so, employees can focus their efforts on work that requires their knowledge and expertise instead of those that don’t.

Provide recommendations

Apart from the development of data look-up tools, cybernetics can also help analyze a multitude of data sources to offer healthcare workers recommendations more quickly than they would have if done manually. Imagine the decision-making process as some kind of a loop involving the procurement of information by employees and making a decision supported by the knowledge gained. Cybernetics can be incorporated into the process and automatically collect and sort through the data, providing workers with the information they need to ensure that patients get the best possible services, whether through telehealth or offline.

Conclusion

With the advantages it offers the healthcare sector, cybernetics is likely to be the future, if not a big part of the industry’s workforce. It’s effective in breaking down the knowledge and data silos, streamlining workflows, and providing better ROI for a health system’s bottom line and employees. Therefore, it’s wise to take advantage of the technologies it offers now.