Abstract:
According to the constitution, access to healthcare is a fundamental right for all citizens in
South Africa. More than 25 years since South Africa became a republic, majority of its citizens
still do not enjoy their rights as enshrined in the constitution due to the dire conditions of public
health institutions. Systems in public health institutions are still outdated, manual and paperbased,
leading to high operational inefficiencies and worse cases death of South African
citizens.
The research purpose was to explore adoption of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in the
South African public healthcare sector and its implications to operational efficiency. The
Technology-Organisation-Environment model, a technology adoption framework was adopted
in this study. A qualitative study was conducted with insights obtained through semi-structured
interviews with medical practitioners in both the private and public sector, senior management
administrative personnel in both public and private healthcare and RPA Industry Experts.
The Technology-Organisation-Environment (TOE) framework was adapted to highlight the
main research findings on adoption of RPA in the South African public healthcare, namely,
stakeholders aspects (environment context), Processes (technology context) and People
(Organisation context). This RPA adoption model could be used as a guide to public
healthcare sector on aspects to consider for adopting RPA.
