Exploring AI's Potential to Transform Healthcare Communications

Communication is central to the success of any enterprise, and tapping into artificial intelligence (AI) to transform patient communications has significant potential for healthcare organizations. During the webinar "Always-on Patient Support: How AI is Redefining Healthcare Communication," John Poli, Industry Principal, Healthcare at RingCentral, focused on how AI-infused communication tools can dramatically increase patient engagement, streamline workflows and reduce costs. More specifically, Poli focused on how AI can enhance next-generation communication such as Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) platforms.

"The benefits and the value … in these new tools provide a very large incentive to move forward to help care providers really deliver what they need for patients in the marketplace," he said.

A robust communications infrastructure supports important healthcare organization functions such as patient access, front-desk operations, provider-patient communication, team coordination, revenue cycle management and community outreach. Because of this, it is critical to almost every aspect of the operating model, making it a powerful transformational target. And that's why adding a trusted layer of AI to services including a communications platform, CCaaS and UCaaS, as well as API communication tools, holds considerable promise. For example, AI can help improve patient access by empowering patients to reach the right service quickly, schedule appointments and get needed information. Similarly, AI can enhance front desk operations by driving more efficient processes and can help control costs by addressing revenue cycle functions.

Course correct: Fixing inefficiencies with AI

Perhaps most importantly, AI can help address the inefficiencies that ironically have been brought on by the healthcare industry's digital revolution. EHRs, nurse call and other systems have driven efficiency in the healthcare industry. At the same time, healthcare organizations have been trying to use online portals to help patients schedule appointments, understand their health records and communicate with providers.

However, with patients seeing multiple doctors over time, portal adoption has proved to be a challenge. "It has been difficult for patients to understand how many different downloads or portal applications they have to have," Poli said, adding that patients may not always know what systems to access or how to add them to their devices.

Because of these frustrations, interactive voice agents (IVAs) are emerging as a key interface for patients to access data and services previously available only through portals. "All of that data that was available through portals and [other] information sources … can now be delivered as well through an interactive voice call and a voice agent," he said. 

Deploying AI before, during and after patient interactions

These IVA communications, however, need to be effective. That's where AI comes in. By infusing AI into the environment at "before, during and after" levels, healthcare organizations can dramatically transform the effectiveness of their communications.

At the before level, AI can "enhance interactive voice agent interfaces to allow users to, first and foremost, get rid of the historical push 1, push 2, push 3 menus that … were very difficult for patients and [resulted in], many times, a poor experience," Poli said. Alternatively, with AI-enhanced interactive voice response (IVR) systems, patients can experience more natural interactions. Instead of pushing buttons, patients simply ask for what they need, whether it is scheduling an appointment, acquiring payment information or leaving a note for the doctor, leading to an improved overall patient experience. In addition, knowledge management AI tools learn more about patients' queries, making it possible to efficiently provide needed information in the future.

"Even though portals have been out there for a long time, we find a lot of people still call their doctor. And in this case, you can now call the doctor and get all the information you want through a digital experience. That's where the IVAs have been very critical," Poli noted.

At the during level, AI can optimize tasks such as scheduling appointments by integrating with EHRs and billing systems and executing specific functions within those systems. Thus, a patient could seamlessly schedule an appointment via the IVA. In addition, AI can optimize live agent interactions through call transcription, sentiment analysis and by providing contextual information to agents.

Healthcare organizations are striving to optimize patients' time on the phone, whether it is with a human administrator or an agent. As such, organizations are enabling the conversation in two ways. First, the healthcare organization needs to make sure that it is listening to everything the patient is saying. AI can collect as much information as possible about what that patient is saying and can also understand key areas of concern that patients might inquire about, making it possible to glean insights into the patient's perspective and experience.

Second, AI can help to coordinate care across the team. For example, an organization might work with a common set of communication tools for voice, video, messaging and digital fax. The AI could provide real-time understanding of which staff members are free to take a call, for example. "Obviously, intelligent collaboration [can] help organizations work together on a patient in a way that's clear," Poli pointed out.

AI also can deepen engagement at the after stage. Conversational analytics provide insights into population health trends and individual patient needs. Voice interactions can now provide organizations with robust information on their patient community that adds to what is available in the EHR. For instance, they can gain a perspective on how often and frequently patients are communicating with the organization and can glean insights into the actual content of those interactions.

Those two dimensions provide a detailed information on patient populations, as well as on business and operational trends. The AI helps the healthcare organization understand if patients are frustrated about schedules or about getting quality appointments. In addition, AI could shed light on emerging population health issues, such as a flu outbreak.

Reaping the overall benefits of AI-powered communication

Overall, AI can help to improve patient engagement by providing context-driven communication, automated digital experiences and integration with other core systems. This is vital to patient satisfaction, as some 40% of calls in the healthcare industry are related to appointment scheduling, highlighting the need for efficient management tools. AI can also help to improve care coordination and support remote care. Indeed, seamless integration of AI across all patient interactions can not only streamline and enhance communication but also collect intelligence to improve overall patient and provider satisfaction.

"The whole patient experience comes together in a new way in the next generation of healthcare…. AI [gives] patients real-time control of what they want to do and how they interact with their providers, and at the same time, free up healthcare resources," Poli concluded. "[AI can also] start to collect overall intelligence about what's happening within those conversations and within those day-to-day activities between the patient and the organization at large. So, this is a very powerful environment we see coming together."

To learn more about RingCentral go to: https://www.ringcentral.com/pdf/state-of-ai-healthcare-communications.html

About RingCentral

RingCentral is a leading provider of trusted AI communications, contact center, revenue intelligence, video and hybrid event solutions. RingCentral empowers businesses with conversation intelligence and unlocks rich customer and employee interactions to provide insights and improved business outcomes. With decades of expertise in reliable and secure cloud communications, RingCentral has earned the trust of hundreds of thousands of customers and millions of users worldwide. Visit ringcentral.com to learn more.