Performance, Scalability and Maintenance: An Experimental Study of RPA vs. Autonomous Agents in the Healthcare Domain
Story 7, from arXiv
A study compares Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Autonomous Agents (APA) for retrieving medical reports in healthcare, finding RPA to be faster, cheaper, and more consistent for stable interfaces.
Key points
- RPA (Playwright) achieved 98.90% accuracy and 98.27% F1-score in retrieving medical reports.
- APA (Gemini 2.5 Flash-lite) had lower accuracy (96.49%) and F1-score (94.48%) but showed more variability over time.
- RPA was 13 times faster (16.07 s vs. 207.21 s per patient) and six times cheaper (USD 0.030 vs. 0.187 per report).
- Both approaches reached 100% step success rates, but APA's performance varied more over time.
- The study was conducted in a healthcare context, focusing on retrieving mammography and breast ultrasound reports.
Why it matters
For software engineers working on automation tools, this study provides concrete performance metrics comparing RPA and APA, helping to decide which approach is better for specific use cases, especially when interfaces are stable.
Counterpoint
APA may offer greater adaptability in dynamic environments, but the study shows that for stable interfaces, RPA is more efficient and cost-effective.
Sources
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