symplr's Compass Survey Finds Nearly Half of Healthcare Operations Remain Manual

Healthcare professionals and leaders report spending 86 minutes a day on administrative tasks they believe AI could reduce

HOUSTON, Oct. 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Most hospital and health system operations remain manual, according to the fifth annual Compass Survey from symplr, a leading provider of enterprise healthcare operations software. Among clinicians, operations, and IT professionals, 40% to 46% say core processes such as credentialing, contract management, workforce scheduling and supply chain management are fully manual. Just 2% to 6% describe them as fully automated.

Administrative burden continues to consume significant time as a result. Respondents report spending an average of 86 minutes per day on administrative tasks they believe AI could eliminate or significantly reduce. The number is even higher among directors and managers, who say they spend 106 minutes a day, roughly a fifth of the workday, on tasks they believe AI could handle.

"Healthcare has spent years adding technology, tools and workarounds to manage operational complexity," said Venkat Kavarthapu, Chief Executive Officer at symplr. "AI can help reduce that burden, but deploying AI on top of fragmented data and manual workflows won't transform healthcare operations. The opportunity is to use technology to remove friction across systems, processes and teams so people spend less time managing the work around healthcare and more time on the work that matters."

The pressure to prove returns on AI investments is growing, with Bain & Company and KLAS finding potential ROI to be an average of 3.5X. Yet the Compass Survey finds many hospitals are still missing the fundamentals needed to get there, including alignment between clinicians and leadership, comprehensive AI governance, and metrics to evaluate performance.

Key findings from this year's Compass Survey:

• Executives and IT leaders agree on the top threat. Clinicians don't. Financial pressure ranks as the top threat to their organization's operations among 65% of C-suite/VP respondents and 45% of IT respondents, while nearly half of clinicians (46%) rank burnout first, the same position it has held since 2023.
• AI governance is uneven across the organization. Only 26% of all respondents report a comprehensive AI policy that is actively enforced. More than half of clinicians (51%) say they're unsure whether an AI policy exists, while executives are far more certain, with just 3% saying they don't know if their organization has a policy.
• Deployment of emerging technology moves faster than measurement and training. Twenty-one percent say their organization has deployed AI without establishing metrics to evaluate it. Meanwhile, just 3% name staff development and change management as their organization's primary strategy for addressing operational challenges, compared with 27% who name AI deployment.
• Nearly half of respondents say foundational workflows remain fully manual. This includes provider credentialing, onboarding and contract management (46% each), supply chain and vendor management (44%), provider evaluation (43%), workforce scheduling (41%), and safety performance (40%). Yet nearly 60% of respondents say their organizations are pursuing operational efficiency and automation initiatives.

View the full findings of the symplr Compass Survey report, "From Stalled to Scattered: How Healthcare Broke Its Paralysis but Not Ground."

Methodology: For the fifth annual symplr Compass Survey, symplr partnered with the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), the professional organization dedicated to serving CIOs, CMIOs, CNIOs, chief digital officers, and other senior healthcare IT leaders. The online survey was fielded between June 1 and July 17, 2026, with 146 respondents across clinical, IT, and operational roles at U.S. hospitals and health systems.

About symplr
symplr is a leader in enterprise healthcare operations software with a first-of-its-kind operations platform. Trusted in 9 of 10 U.S. hospitals and 400+ U.S. health plans, symplr optimizes operations and maximizes care powered by our cloud-based workforce, quality, provider data management, and spend solutions. Gain efficiency, reduce complexity, and improve outcomes where it matters most. Learn how to stay ahead of change at www.symplr.com.

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SOURCE symplr