Leading U.S. hospital automates software testing, cutting manual effort by 95%

One of the nation's largest and most respected pediatric and women's health centers, this United States (U.S.) hospital ranks among the top four in its field. Renowned for its expertise in cardiology and cancer care, it also delivers nearly 7,000 babies every year.

Software testing is rarely a life-or-death job. But for the IT team at this leading hospital, it could be. Because it’s tasked with regression testing the electronic medical record (EMR) platform, provided by healthcare software specialist, Epic.

The EMR securely stores every patient's medical record and gives doctors and nurses immediate access to the information they need. That helps clinicians make the right decisions at the right time so patients receive better care.

As with all software, Epic often updates and improves the EMR. Every update requires regression testing to ensure any changes to the software’s code, such as optimizations or new features, don’t accidentally cause issues elsewhere.

It’s a bit like when a patient has heart surgery. The doctor must still check their overall vital signs to make sure the treatment didn't create unexpected problems in other parts of their body.

A colossal manual task

Making sure each upgrade happens perfectly is serious business. The hospital must test hundreds of workflows across multiple departments to confirm they work, without exception, every time. The IT department often needs to do this quickly, often at night or over weekends.

In the past, this was done manually, which cost a lot of money and took longer. There were other inefficiencies, too. For example, tests were sometimes inconsistent across different teams. While still effective, the rules for deciding if a workflow passed or failed a test changed depending on who did it.

At the same time, different people recorded test evidence unevenly. In fact, there was no single, authoritative system to capture test outcomes that an auditor or compliance team could fully trust. This sometimes led to emergency system patches and outages.

The hospital managed these well, but they wanted to improve the testing process. Which led it to TQA, a UiPath partner and consultancy specializing in agentic AI, automation, and enterprise platform modernization.

The hospital was undoubtedly making sure regression testing happened. But it wasn’t running like a well-oiled machine. It treated every EMR upgrade like a custom event rather than a repeatable process. The testing equivalent of hand-assembling each car in a factory instead of running an efficient production line.

Ramsen Neesan, Test Automation Practice Lead, TQA

Setting goals

The TQA team set goals for improving the testing process with the hospital. First, create a standardized, automation-led regression testing program that scales as Epic updates its software.

By automating the process, ‌tests could be done consistently to check everything worked after an upgrade and before it went live. Instead of a tester manually going through workflows, clicking on buttons, and entering information, a robot could do it for them.

Second, create a unified, auditable system of record for test design, execution and whether a workflow passed or failed after an upgrade. This gives ​​everyone assurance that the testing can be reviewed, traced end to end, and understood.

Third, reduce ​​the time analysts spend on setup and testing. Team members wasted hundreds of hours on vital, yet manual work. Employees needed to be freed to focus on higher-value activities, such as validation of the tests or optimizing clinical work.

Putting a solution in place

TQA’s approach was careful and considered. The team knew the hospital already had a strong quality control process. This is the task of deciding whether code changes from an upgrade have broken existing functionality. There were also tests in place that met hospital standards, security protocols, and compliance rules.

Rather than replacing any of this, TQA designed an architecture in which UiPath Test Manager could orchestrate automated tests while the hospital’s existing quality control method remained the same. This let the IT team stay in control and avoided the costs and risks of changing tools.

Once in place, TQA ran a pilot program. This brought together those who managed Epic software, quality control specialists, and infrastructure experts. TQA's team designed, planned, and implemented UiPath Test Manager. The hospital’s IT team retained control of test content and clinical validation.

It was a success. The solution now automates testing from start to finish. It made it standard and used it consistently for all Epic upgrades. In doing so, the solution recorded every change in code, every workflow test, and every quality control decision to make it traceable. Each test could be given to someone who took responsibility for it. These were also grouped into bundles of tests with ownership allocated to a team.

The system documented everything too, codifying how to write, review, run, and judge tests. This gave the hospital the consistency it needed to run regression testing like a well-oiled machine, which it now does.

Powerful results

After the program was rolled out, the hospital spent 95% less time running regression testing. The solution has given nearly 5,000 hours of time back to employees each year to focus on higher-value tasks. That’s the equivalent of about $420,000 worth of time freed for other work.

In addition, testing is 10 times faster. It used to take anything from 14 to 21 days. Now it’s three to four hours. Meanwhile, reporting has gone from two to three days of work to minutes.

Risk is lower, too. The hospital now has audit-ready records with evidence about the tests and their outcomes available in minutes rather than days. Importantly, these meet Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards. These govern the protection of sensitive patient health data in the U.S.

Users have been very positive. As Neesan explained, “Those running the Epic system—the people responsible for quality control and the infrastructure team—have all given great feedback. They’re more confident about releasing updates to the Epic system. And they’re able to focus on validation of tests and improvements rather than running the tests themselves.”

Lessons for others

In highly regulated situations like this, it’s important to maintain existing tools and processes rather than replace everything. It’s more important to automate and build stronger governance. This makes it easier for people to adopt the new way of doing things and avoids risk.”

Ramsen Neesan, Test Automation Practice Lead, TQA

“Training is also vital. Everyone involved needs to undergo at least basic training with UiPath,” Neesan added. “This ensures everyone understands the concepts of automated testing.”

Which is going from strength to strength at the hospital. Its IT team is considering expanding the program in two ways. Firstly, by introducing the approach to other Epic software modules and more widely across the organization with other enterprise platforms.

Secondly, by using more agents in UiPath Test Manager to self-heal test scripts. This will allow tests to adapt to changes in an application's user interface without requiring manual updates to the test automation.

What began as a project to improve regression testing has evolved into a model for enterprise change management. By reducing manual effort by 95%, accelerating testing cycles from weeks to hours, and creating a fully auditable testing framework, the hospital has shown how automation can transform even the most complex and highly regulated environments.

As the program expands, it’s setting a new benchmark for how healthcare organizations can deploy critical software updates, potentially in life-or-death situations, with confidence.

Statistics:

• Manual effort reduced by 95%

• Nearly 5,000 hours saved $420,000 worth of time freed

• Tests completed 10x faster

• Reporting cut from days to minutes

Editor's note: this is a guest post from a certified UiPath partner.

About TQA

As a certified UiPath partner and implementation specialist, TQA designs and builds AI-driven workflows that streamline end-to-end processes. Having delivered 1,000+ automation solutions, their UiPath programs have already helped clients recover millions in lost revenue and support double-digit growth. Read more about how TQA works with healthcare organizations.