Author Article by Yashna Garg, CMO Zeon Lifesciences Ltd.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a significant transformative force in healthcare, with considerable potential to optimise various aspects of the industry. One potential area where AI is making a noteworthy impact is healthcare communication.
The technology, in particular, has created new avenues for streamlining and automating communication processes, lessening the burden on healthcare professionals and eventually enhancing patient care.
Orbita, a leading provider of conversational AI, performed a study revealing that their platform can potentially save healthcare organisations an average of 10 hours per week per employee. The primary reason behind these significant time savings lies in the platform’s ability to automate routine tasks such as appointment scheduling, patient record updates, and responding to common questions. By offloading these tasks to the AI system, healthcare professionals can divert their efforts towards more essential aspects of patient care, leading to improved efficiency and service quality.
In another informative study conducted by the prestigious Mayo Clinic, generative AI was utilised to summarise physician notes, resulting in an excellent reduction of up to 80% in the time required to read and comprehend these notes. The use of generative AI in this context not only optimises the workflow for physicians but also furnishes them with more valuable time to engage with patients and deliver personalised care. This improved physician-patient interaction can result in improved health outcomes and a more satisfying patient experience.
Moreover, BMC Medicine conducted a study that underlined the impact of generative AI in addressing the issue of appointment no-shows. The study revealed that employing generative AI for scheduling appointments can lead to a reduction of up to 20% in no-show rates. The AI platform achieves this by proactively sending reminders and notifications to patients, ensuring that they are well-informed and reminded of their upcoming appointments.
Below is a comprehensive analysis detailing the capability of Generative AI in transforming healthcare communication by simplifying administrative tasks, personalising patient education, and enabling seamless communication between healthcare professionals.
Streamlining administrative tasks
One of the immediate challenges healthcare professionals encounter is the burden of administrative work, which shifts their attention from patient care. Generative AI, in this regard, presents a viable solution to this challenge by automating numerous administrative tasks. Scheduling appointments, processing insurance claims, and answering patient inquiries can all be effectively managed by AI-driven systems.
Generative AI-powered chatbots can respond to patient inquiries, including insurance coverage, assist in scheduling appointments, and provide reminders for upcoming consultations promptly and accurately.
By automating these repetitive tasks, healthcare professionals can focus better on direct patient interactions, enhancing patient satisfaction and overall healthcare outcomes.
Personalising treatment
Every patient has distinctive medical requirements, understanding levels, and cultural surroundings. Generative AI allows healthcare professionals to provide personalised patient education materials. By examining patient data, AI platforms can design tailored educational content that reverberates with individual patients, improving their knowledge of medical conditions and treatment choices.
For example, a generative AI system can produce tailored educational videos, handouts, or engaging modules that cater to individual patient profiles. These resources can be altered based on age, academic background, and preferred language. By delivering personalised educational resources, patients are sufficiently equipped to understand their conditions, stick to treatment programs, and participate in their healthcare journey.
Enhanced communication between healthcare professionals
Effective communication among healthcare professionals is crucial to delivering comprehensive and effective patient care. Generative AI plays a key role by enabling the exchange of contemporary medical research and guidelines among healthcare professionals.
Leveraging personalised dashboards, generative AI tools keep healthcare professionals informed about the latest developments in their fields of expertise.
Thus, healthcare professionals can make knowledgeable decisions and collaborate more effectively by garnering real-time information, enhancing patient outcomes.
Furthermore, interactive and personalised communication tools facilitate higher patient engagement, empowering patients to participate effectively in their healthcare management.
Another advantage of utilising generative AI to automate administrative tasks includes reduced operational costs and human intervention, limiting the scope of errors. The technology ensures that healthcare communication is uniform and complies with established standards, mitigating the risk of misinformation.
With consistent advancements in AI technology, its applications in healthcare are expected to grow, bringing unparalleled advantages to patients and healthcare providers alike.
However, this also demands constant research and development to manage the challenges linked with data privacy, discrimination, and regulatory frameworks, ensuring the reliable and ethical deployment of generative AI in healthcare. By adopting the potential of generative AI in healthcare communication, we can embark on a journey toward a more patient-centric, efficient, and productive healthcare framework.
