Healthcare professionals face numerous challenges from staffing shortages and rising costs, to widespread burnout and supply chain disruptions. These challenges are further compounded by continued reliance on manual testing for EHR, third-party, and enterprise applications.
In this blog, we’ll dive into the problems surrounding manual testing and share the benefits of adopting automation. Switching to test automation may not be a panacea for all that ails the industry – but it is one powerful leap in the right direction. SureTest’s managed services offer a powerful alternative, automating testing to save time, reduce risk, and improve outcomes.
25,000 Hours Gone
How many hours do you imagine the typical health system spends manually testing EHRs and other systems? We were curious about this ourselves, so we conducted a study.
After analyzing the manual testing activity of numerous healthcare systems, we found that, on average, health systems spend almost 25,000 hours per year on manual testing.
Put another way, based on our joint study with health systems, the average fully loaded hourly cost for hospital employees involved in the 25,000 manual testing hours per year is $45 per hour; the actual employee expense for manual testing is $1.125 million a year.
Even if a health system spends less time manually testing, it’s still an incredibly inefficient use of time and resources.
Beyond Lost Time and Money
While we tend to focus on the obvious problems of time and money, manual testing actually snowballs into other significant issues:
- Staff Burnout: Whether updating and optimizing the EHR, or focusing on internal changes, manual testing can consume valuable time and resources, leaving IT Teams with little time to focus on other crucial responsibilities or advance strategic, forward-looking projects.
- Care Interruptions: If something goes wrong with the EHR in the middle of a working day, staff must stop patient care delivery to create an IT support ticket. Unlike automated testing, which is more thorough and occurs frequently to catch issues early, manual testing is less comprehensive and happens less often, increasing the risk of such interruptions by relying on reactive problem-solving.
- Critical Errors: Performing the repetitive tasks of manual testing can lead to incorrect or incomplete results. In healthcare, any mistake can have significant consequences, including compromising patient safety.
- Quality Measures: When manual testing is the approach, employees can skip steps, initiate a workaround, thereby nullifying a methodical testing approach. With automation, steps are not skipped, rigor and discipline exist, and the frequency of testing improves quality outcomes.
Why Manual Testing Is So Slow
Manual testing is the exact opposite of operational efficiency. In fact, we could call this the poster child for operational inefficiency. Most health systems, when measuring the time it takes to perform manual testing, only count the time spent on keyboard input during the actual test cycle. There are many other facets of manual testing. Quality testing requires health system staff to also perform the following components of testing manually – these hours add up!
- Reviewing release notes
- Prepping and maintaining the test environment
- Creating patients and executing test scripts
- Analyzing and updating failed scripts
- Handling tickets created from test cycles
- Discharging patients and re-executing scripts
Even if manual testing were 100% accurate (which it isn’t), the time spent would still be a drain on any healthcare system’s limited resources. Industry best practices show a 4:1 ratio between manual time spent and script runtime. Put another way, this means that manual testing time accounts for 80% of every script test.
Automate and Never Look Back
Switching to test automation invariably leads healthcare professionals to ask themselves the same question, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?”
The main reason for this epiphany is the time saved.
With automation, health systems offload up to 80% or more of the manual testing burden from their teams.
While time-savings tops the list, health systems realize numerous other benefits by transitioning to test automation:
- Improved Test Quality: Ensure consistent test coverage by eliminating duplication and redundancy in test steps.
- Reduced Human Error: Minimize errors caused by manual processes while improving confidence in results.
- Increased Analyst Satisfaction: Raise analysts’ morale and decrease burnout by freeing them from repetitive tasks.
- Minimized Security Risks: Create a consistently updated environment that enhances overall quality and eliminates risks.
One Testing Cycle is Not Enough
Healthcare systems that rely on manual testing may inadvertently exacerbate problems by failing to implement thorough testing procedures.
Best practices require completing multiple test cycles, where Cycle 1 identifies initial issues and Cycle 2 ensures fixes are successful and that no new problems arise.
For instance, if the manual testing team identifies an issue in an initial test and then calls the job complete after correcting the issue, the job isn’t actually finished. The initial problem may also compromise a workflow further down the line, which could potentially lead to patient safety risks or a loss of revenue.
Automation delivers multiple cycles of testing to confirm that updates are corrected all the way through the clinical and revenue cycle workflows – enhancing quality assurance in the health system without any additional strain on resources.
Automation: The Gift that Keeps on Giving
Automated testing for EHR, third-party, and enterprise applications is a “work smarter, not harder” approach that improves testing quality, enhances operational efficiency, and reduces staff burnout.
Additionally, it delivers tremendous ROI from the get-go.
By implementing SureTest’s managed solution, many healthcare systems achieve a positive ROI within the first year and up to 200% over a three-year period. On average, the 14 health systems SureTest studied will realize almost a $3M 3-year ROI.
One of our clients, a major academic health system in the Northeast, recently completed an internal ROI analysis comparing the total cost of manual testing to the cost of SureTest’s SureManage Solution. They found that manually testing as thoroughly and frequently as the managed automation solution would cost them over $5.6 million dollars. That is over 300% more than the cost of their SureManage Solution. Many health systems view the shift toward automated testing merely as a cost-cutting measure. In fact, moving testing to an automated managed service demonstrates significant ROI and gives money and time back to the health system. The value of automation of manual testing is woefully underestimated, and these direct studies are proof.
Novant Health: A Real-World Example
Like many organizations, Novant Health was spending an extraordinary amount of time on manual testing for its Epic system (more than 29,000 hours a year). They knew there had to be a better way to reduce resource allocation and increase its testing scope. That’s when they turned to SureTest.
Our automated testing solution transformed Novant’s testing process, producing more reliable testing with far less strain on staff. Automation helped them:
- Cut down the hours needed to document and troubleshoot system bugs
- Speed up new release approvals by reducing analyst demands and shrinking Command Center timelines
- Ease the burden on clinicians by minimizing time pulled from patient care
- Improve user satisfaction by spotting issues earlier and making testing less of a hassle
- Keep testing scripts and workflows current
- Avoid delays when key team members weren’t available
Novant Health Highlights
91%Reduction in time spent running scripts | 100%Reduction in labor required to run scripts | 10FTEs reallocated to more strategic projects |
“Through our Epic Test Automation partnership with SureTest, Novant Health reduced the time needed to thoroughly test our EHR application upgrades and future rollouts while minimizing disruption of clinical staff.” – Ryan Neaves, VP of Product Development, Novant Health
Why Healthcare Systems Nationwide Choose SureTest
SureTest is trusted by healthcare organizations across the United States because of our ability to align strategically with each system’s unique priorities and testing needs:
1. A Clear Path to ROI
Our automation increases organizational efficiency which leads to ROI.
2. Adaptability and Scalability
Our solution evolves alongside the system and adjusts to changing requirements.
3. Intelligent Resource Allocation
Our service frees IT staff to focus on initiatives that drive the health system forward.
Discover the Difference Automation Can Make
Manual testing may be the “way things have always been done around here,” but it drains staff time, budget, and team morale. Automated testing opens up a new world of operational efficiency and ROI, cutting manual testing hours by up to 91% like Novant, and delivering a measurable ROI as high as 200% in just three years. It’s not just faster; it’s smarter, safer, and better for the bottom line.
Want to see what automation looks like for your organization? Contact us today to schedule a demo.