Healthcare isn’t just about doctors and clinics—it’s about how technology can make the experience smoother for patients. We talked about why putting patients first is the key to better healthcare experiences and why decentralized centralized scheduling works. Now let’s look at the tools that are changing the game in this next installment on “Transforming Patient Experience in Healthcare”.
Refresher: Must-Have Tech (The Basics)
Online Scheduling: The best systems schedule up to 70% of appointments online. It’s like booking a dinner reservation—no phone required. If this is an area that is new to you there are plenty of other articles that can provide you with an overview
Apps and Websites: All EMR platforms let patients find you and book easily. Bonus points if they don’t need to log in just to check availability. This is a mature business offering with lots of good options regardless of your size.
Interactive Voice Assistants (IVA): This is currently the most exciting area in patient access. Up until about 8 months ago, we were relegated to robotic, script-based tools of ever increasing frustration for our patients. Those days are now behind us. There are currently multiple options that can provide you and your patients with human sounding AI that can talk, understand, and schedule perfectly every time. This tech is able to answer up to 70% of all scheduling, cancelation and rescheduling requests with development underway for billing, RX refills and many other interactions. In addition to being easy to understand and conversational, it doesn’t make mistakes, answers 24/7, doesn’t quit, doesn’t take vacation, doesn’t get frustrated with patients, and never calls in sick. Like the other tech, there is an IVA to fit every size of operation. It also allows you to bring the rest of your scheduling back on shore and into your clinics.
Smart Fixes
Ever called a helpline and couldn’t understand the agent because they were offshore and your first thought was “this call is going to take forever”? In the last year, an accent neutralization software has launched that smooths out the offshore accent so that it sounds like the speaker has been in the US for years. This allows you to continue with the low cost of offshore but without the frustration that comes with it. Let us know if you’d like to hear it and we can connect you with them for a demonstration.
Why It’s a Win
When you maximize the use of current technology with a good in-clinic scheduling model you can improve your patient satisfaction without adding on-shore costs. Even if this doesn’t sound like something you want to do right away, if you aren’t using accent neutralization software and planning to roll out a new voice IVA solution, you should be doing both because you can take advantage of significant improvements and savings today. In the next article, we’ll reveal the secret weapon for patient support.
