The role of AI in healthcare contact centers
Artificial intelligence is transforming contact center operations by better handling administrative tasks and call routing and allowing human agents to focus on interactions that require more empathy and complexity. This increases workflow efficiency and improves the patient experience by reducing wait times and providing more personalized services.
To engage patients, AI-powered features enable proactive communication, such as automated appointment reminders and pharmacy replenishment. AI-powered sentiment analysis also enables contact centers to measure patient satisfaction and identify areas for improvement.
On the agent side, AI tools are increasingly being used to summarize call interactions and analyze performance metrics that refine agent training and improve overall service quality.
What a modern contact center means for the future of healthcare
A great example of a healthcare system renewing its CX strategy is Tampa General Hospital, which consolidated its approach through the Experience Center, launched over a year ago. This centralized approach broke through the fragmentation that made their previous CX approach unwieldy. Now, Experience Center staff handle 30,000 calls per week, and the system has seen a 20% decrease in appointment no-show rates, a 47% increase in appointments made online, and a 75% increase in appointments available online.
Another example is a Wisconsin-based healthcare system that wanted to solve the problems of long wait times and abandoned calls in its contact center. The healthcare system wanted to provide an omnichannel experience and incorporate self-service options through a chatbot and intelligent voice assistant. Integration with the electronic health record enabled appointment and bill payment reminders to be sent via text message. The healthcare system has since seen abandoned calls drop to less than 5%; more than 20% of interactions are handled through self-service and 80% of calls are answered within 30 seconds.
Next: Three healthcare contact center trends that can improve the patient experience.
These examples show that healthcare organizations can transform their contact center operations as part of an industry-wide shift to better support patients throughout their care journey. As contact center tools and processes become more sophisticated, organizations can plan more patient engagement initiatives, such as sending text reminders about treatment or offering personalized check-ins to help patients feel cared for even outside the hospital walls.
Healthcare organizations don’t have to go through these changes alone. Just as people turn to specialists when they have health issues, organizations can find a partner with deep CX expertise who can help them fine-tune a new strategy. For example, CDW offers managed services, workshops and strategic consulting that can help organizations define their customer journey and realize their vision of a better patient experience.
This article is part of Health technology‘S MonITor blog series.
