Leaders know it’s not sustainable. Deloitte’s 2025 research found that most health executives now rank operational efficiency and patient engagement among their top priorities. The intent is there, but outdated systems and staffing pressure keep getting in the way.

That’s where smart orchestration and AI routing in healthcare comes in. It works behind the scenes, analyzing what patients say, how urgent the request sounds, and where it should go next. When designed well, smart routing in healthcare makes care faster, smoother, and a little more human.

The Case for AI Routing in Healthcare

In most hospitals, the way calls and messages get routed hasn’t changed much in years. Patients still face long phone menus or wait in queues that treat every request the same. A billing question sits next to a medication concern; an anxious parent holds while a routine appointment request gets answered first. These systems weren’t built for the pace or complexity of modern care.

Now, AI routing in healthcare is starting to mend those seams. It listens as each interaction unfolds, catching tone, urgency, and emotion, then quietly figures out what the person actually needs. Sometimes that means a nurse. Sometimes it’s a digital answer or a specialist ready to step in. The process feels smooth: fast triage, fewer transfers, less pressure on teams already stretched thin.

For once, the technology bends toward the rhythm of care instead of forcing people to bend to it. And it’s not theoretical. Platforms like Genesys Cloud,  now weaving journey management tools directly into their routing engines, are turning that idea into practice. Orchestration and routing aren’t separate anymore; they’re starting to move as one.

The Value of Orchestration and AI Routing in Healthcare

Healthcare leaders are looking for real results from AI, not just automation for its own sake. The value of AI routing in healthcare comes into focus when it solves problems that patients and clinicians actually feel every day, challenges like:

Data Silos and Interoperability

Every hospital runs on data, but much of it lives in its own world. Appointment software, EHR systems, billing tools, and contact centers often act like distant relatives – related, but rarely on speaking terms. A patient might confirm an appointment online, call later to ask a question, and still get transferred three times because no one sees the full picture.

Smart routing in healthcare depends on connected context: identity, intent, and history coming together in one secure layer. That’s what orchestration platforms are built to deliver.

In the UK, the NHS is showing what’s possible. It’s connecting massive data sets inside secure, de-identified environments, proving that privacy and insight don’t have to be enemies. When handled right, patient data can be both protected and powerful.

Privacy-First Personalization

Healthcare runs on trust. Patients expect their personal details to stay protected, even as care becomes more digital. That’s why any move toward AI-driven routing has to start with privacy in mind.

Modern systems now analyze behavioral signals: the way people communicate or express urgency, instead of relying on demographic data. This approach keeps interactions compliant while still delivering a tailored experience. CareSource, using Microsoft tools, followed this model, matching patients with agents or AI bots based on their needs. The result was faster customer responses, better personalization, and fewer burned out agents.

This balance of empathy and oversight is what makes AI routing credible in regulated environments. It’s also where governance meets experience. Transparent orchestration builds trust for both patients and staff, a principle every health organization will need to embrace as AI becomes more embedded in care delivery.

Reducing Wait Times and Improving First-Contact Resolution

Few moments shape patient perception more than the wait. Whether it’s a phone queue, a delayed call-back, or an unanswered portal message, every minute feels longer when health concerns are involved. Traditional routing systems still treat each request as equal — but in healthcare, urgency varies widely.

AI routing in healthcare can now tell the difference between a quick scheduling question and a life-or-death call. It listens for tone, urgency, and context, then sends each interaction exactly where it belongs, the first time. Siemens Healthineers proved how powerful that can be. Using Genesys Cloud, it linked 2,200 experts across 35 countries, routing cases by urgency and need. The entire rollout took just eight months and ran with zero downtime.

Even within a single organization, intelligent routing can ease heavy workloads. Kaiser Permanente used natural language processing to triage millions of patient messages, automatically routing nearly a third to care teams before they reached a physician’s inbox. Wait times fell, and clinical staff had more space to focus on complex cases.

Tackling Staffing and Capacity Pressures

Behind every phone line and inbox is a care team trying to do too much with too little. Hiring more people helps for a while, but it doesn’t fix the math. Smarter systems do. AI routing and journey orchestration now balance workloads automatically, match tasks to skill, and hand off routine admin work to digital assistants.

Maxicare, one of the largest healthcare providers in its region, found itself at a crossroads: rising call volumes, higher expectations, and limited staff. By turning to NICE Enlighten AI Routing, it reimagined how every interaction moved through the system.

The results were impossible to ignore: over $11 million saved each year and a threefold return on investment, all while patients got faster, more personal service. In hospitals, that same idea holds: when systems take on the grunt work, people finally have time to care. At John Muir Health, AI charting tools helped clinicians spend less time on paperwork and more time with patients.

The firm cut 34 minutes of documentation per day per clinician and reduced physician turnover by 44 percent. It’s proof that intelligent automation doesn’t just lift productivity, it helps protect the people who deliver care.

Maintaining Empathy in Digital Channels

When care feels cold, trust cracks fast. Anxiety rises, and even simple problems start to feel personal. That’s why empathy has to be part of automation. Well-designed systems can read frustration in tone or phrasing and know when it’s time to pause, or hand the conversation to a real person.

By detecting emotion and urgency cues, AI routing can send distressed patients straight to a clinician while keeping routine requests within digital channels. The result is faster help without losing the warmth that builds confidence.

Dental Axess pulled this off when it unified phone, email, WhatsApp, chat, and social channels through Genesys Cloud. The company gained 24/7 responsiveness, better visibility for staff, and saved about 1.5 days of work each week, all while keeping 100% call-answer rates. It’s living proof that journey orchestration in healthcare can combine efficiency and empathy without compromise.

Getting Started with AI Routing in Healthcare

Every healthcare group talks about simplifying the patient journey. Doing it is another story. Moving from good intentions to measurable change takes discipline.

• Step 1: Build a Secure Data Foundation: Build a secure data base: Link EHRs, scheduling tools, billing systems, and contact centers within a single, protected orchestration layer.
• Step 2: Pick the pressure points: Fix what hurts first: triage queues, referral delays, or lab-result follow-ups. Small wins earn buy-in.
• Step 3: Choose the Right Platform: Real-time decisions and explainable logic are must-haves. The system should show why it acted, not just that it did.

Then track what matters: faster responses, better resolution rates, happier clinicians. Expand only after the data proves it’s working.

The Future of Smarter Healthcare Journeys

The next phase of digital healthcare won’t be defined by new tools but by connection. As patient interactions multiply across apps, calls, and portals, the systems behind them must keep up – learning, adapting, and adjusting on the fly. That’s where AI routing in healthcare is heading: toward orchestration that evolves continuously, improving with every touchpoint and interaction.

Already, AI is moving beyond static workflows into something more dynamic, systems that can rewrite their own logic as conditions change. These “agentic” models monitor outcomes and adjust automatically, learning what works best for different patient types or clinical contexts.

Plus, we’re seeing evidence that future healthcare journeys will run on signals. A spike in vitals, a new lab result, or an urgent message will instantly trigger a routing decision. Platforms like Genesys Cloud, and NiCE’s orchestration system already point in this direction.

At its best, AI routing in healthcare does more than manage calls or messages, it restores order to chaos. It helps patients reach the right care faster, eases the pressure on clinical teams, and rebuilds trust in digital health itself. That’s the future of smarter care.

Press Ganey Forsta, often referred to as “PG Forsta”, is a rising force in the voice of the customer (VoC) space, rivaling Qualtrics.

Indeed, it recently placed as a Leader in the market’s latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for VoC.

In doing so, PG Forsta ranked alongside InMoment, which it later rolled up in May.

As such, this latest acquisition brings together three of the VoC space’s biggest brands.

Yet, Qualtrics is one of the market’s two most prominent names, with Medallia the other.

The acquisition will extend its market leadership and help consolidate the space.

Nevertheless, it will also boost Qualtrics’ industry-specific offerings, with PG Forsta widely deployed in the healthcare space and other highly-regulated sectors.

Across these industries, it offers advanced journey visualizations and templates, simplifying feature adoption.

PG Forsta is also well-known for its strong support services and differentiated AI solutions for front-line, customer-facing employees.

As such, it can offer many more bows to Qualtrics’ quiver, with the deal marking the VoC giant’s largest investment since it was taken private by Silver Lake in 2023.

“Bringing Qualtrics and Press Ganey Forsta together will accelerate the adoption of AI and create the most comprehensive platform for improving the human experience,” said Zig Serafin, CEO of Qualtrics.

Combining Qualtrics’ AI platform with Press Ganey Forsta’s trusted analytics and deep expertise creates an opportunity to deliver exceptional value and measurable outcomes for our customers.

The combined companies are expected to generate nearly $3BN in annual revenue. The cash and stock transaction is expected to close in the coming months, and the two companies will continue to operate independently in the meantime.

But beyond size, Patrick T. Ryan, Chairman and CEO of Press Ganey Forsta, stressed that the real differentiator is the ability to turn massive data into smarter, faster decisions powered by AI.

“AI is rapidly transforming every industry, and organizations need proven, innovative solutions grounded in deep expertise to move from insight to impact faster,” he said. This investment ignites our ability to deliver.”

Qualtrics has already been making strides in AI with tools like Conversational Feedback, Qualtrics Assist, synthetic research platform Edge Audiences, and Experience Agents. According to the company, more than one-third of customers have adopted these AI features, and 90 percent of their top 50 enterprise clients are already using them.

Now, with Press Ganey Forsta’s benchmarking data and advisory services in the mix, Qualtrics aims to help clients move from insights to impact faster.

As Bill Staikos, Founder and Managing Partner of Be Customer Led, put it in a LinkedIn post:

In the quickly consolidating CXM space, this is the loudest signal yet that ‘experience’ is more and more about data fidelity and industry depth. PG’s healthcare footprint is enormous, and the combined company also recently picked up InMoment. So this is data scale + vertical credibility + AI (and AI training) in one package.

That massive healthcare footprint sees Press Ganey Forsta work with 41,000 providers across 30 countries. As it does so, Press Ganey Forsta’s Human Experience (HX) Platform brings together customer experience, employee experience, patient experience, and market research. Yet, its influence is expanding.

Jim Davies, Co-Founder and Executive Partner at Actionary, summarized the move by telling CX Today:

The PG Forsta acquisition strengthens Qualtrics’ healthcare and VoC capabilities, expanding its portfolio and reinforcing its market leadership in experience management. The next frontier will be proactively embedding insights directly into operational workflows to shape customer experiences in real time.

What Does the Deal Mean for Qualtrics’ Rivals?

“The combo locks up healthcare for Qualtrics, as they’ll now have a massive inventory of longitudinal patient and clinician signals, wrapped in compliance workflows and integrations, that most horizontal platforms simply don’t have,” according to Staikos.

For Medallia, it brings both real pressure and hidden opportunity. The pressure is clear, as the narrative is shifting hard toward platforms that offer high-signal, trusted, industry-specific data and the ability to drive meaningful action within existing systems. But the opportunity lies in leaning into its strengths: blue-chip clients, strong service delivery, and a foothold in industries like financial services, travel, and telco, Staikos wrote.

Yet, what about other market competitors Sprinklr and Verint?

“[T]his is a green light [for Sprinklr] to lean into their “unified front-office execution,” continued Staikos. “They already own care, social, and marketing workflows; the move now is to prove closed-loop activation with measurable cost-to-serve and revenue lift using the signals they already collect.”

For Verint, which will merge with its rival Calabrio after its recent acquisition by Thoma Bravo, “the path is ‘interaction + intent + outcome’. They can bind VoC to interaction analytics and WEM so leaders can remove failure demand, versus just putting it on a dashboard.

“In the end, if you’re not going to be the data-plus-vertical incumbent, you have to be the activation engine that lives natively in CRM, CCaaS, EHR, POS, and ERP. Vertical depth, packaged outcomes, first-party data leverage, and ruthless proof of value in quarters, not years, is the winning message.

The VoC market has been heating up with consolidations and AI innovation. All eyes will be on how quickly the combined company can integrate its capabilities and deliver on its promise to turn better data into better human experiences at scale.

Tommy shares Valeris’ decade-long technology journey — from premises-based systems to the cloud — and explains why AI-first innovation was the defining factor in their move. He reveals how intelligent routing, virtual agents, and real-time AI updates are enabling Valeris to deliver smarter, more compassionate patient experiences while empowering agents to focus on what humans do best: empathy and connection.

From operational agility to agent satisfaction and patient trust, this conversation highlights how Cisco’s innovation is reshaping customer experience in healthcare and beyond.

Watch now to learn how Valeris is using cloud contact centre technology to combine AI efficiency with human empathy.

WebexOne 2025 Coverage

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• Why the Future of AI in CX Depends on Leaders Who Can Say ‘No’
• No More Boxes: Webex’s Open Approach to Customer Experience Integration
• Ryan Reynolds at WebexOne 2025: Hollywood, Business, and CX with a Side of Sarcasm
• Connected Intelligence and the End of the Drudge Work, Says Nate Brown

From the move to the cloud, to the birth of chatbots, to the pandemic-induced rise in remote working – the headset has seen it all.

Of course, that isn’t to say that agents are still using the same old bulky, ear-crushing models of yesteryear.

These days, the top tier offerings are ergonomic pieces of kit that boast AI-powered features and capabilities.

One of the major contact center headset retailers in the sector is Cyber Acoustics.

Having come from a strong background in the education sector, the pandemic – and subsequent increase in remote working – provided Cyber Acoustics with an avenue into the contact center space.

Thor Mitskog, CEO of Cyber Acoustics, explained how once the company gained an understanding of the contact center sector it realized that it was a “perfect fit” for what they do.

“It’s been tremendously eye-opening to us, because we saw all the issues and problems within the call center arena were mainly related to acoustics.”

“And we quickly identified things that we could bring in to help solve these problems.”

The Power of Noise-Cancellation

Whether it’s traffic, lawnmowers, or excitable pets when working remotely, or background chatter when in a contact center environment, the number one problem that Cyber Acoustics identified for its customers was a lack of effective noise cancellation solutions.

In particular, Mitskog and his team felt that too many contact centers were overly reliant on software for their noise-cancellation, rather than the headsets themselves.

The company firmly believes that contact centers and CX departments do not need to burden their IT people with more software to manage and install when there are hardware solutions that can do a better job of solving the problem.

“We feel it’s important to avoid having to deploy software because it’s another layer that these call center and IT people have to manage,” Mitskog explained.

“We do everything in hardware, no drivers, and it’s all controlled by the IT people on what features they want to deploy within that hardware.”

When it comes to the hardware, Cyber Acoustics’ headsets are equiped with an AI-powered DSP solution, which is embedded directly into the headsets.

The AI algorithm actively learns and filters out external noises, ensuring that once a distracting sound – such as a nearby conversation – is identified, it will not bleed through in subsequent calls.

This tech was used in the company’s first AI-powered headset, the AC-304, which launched in early 2024.

Mitskog describes the product as a “game-changer” for BPOs, detailing how it has led to a significant rise in demand, with the company’s traction among top-tier BPOs looking very strong for 2025.

Building on the success of the AC-304, Cyber Acoustics expanded its lineup with the launch of the AC-404.

Designed as a “commercial back-office solution,” The headset features the same AI-powered noise cancellation but is optimized for executives with a more ergonomic design, collapsible structure, and magnetic desktop attachment for ease of use.

Standing Out from the Crowd

When it comes to what really sets Cyber Acoustics apart from other headset providers in the space, alongside the AI-powered noise-cancellation capabilities, Mitskog outlined these additional differentiators:

Affordability Without Compromising Quality

While some competing solutions offer strong noise cancellation, they are prohibitively expensive for most call centers.

We made a strategic decision to make our technology accessible, ensuring that call centers can deploy high-performance headsets without excessive costs, as Mitskog explains:

“There are some other solutions out there that are good; they’re almost as good as ours, but they’re very expensive.”

“And the problem is contact centers can’t afford to deploy something that’s stupidly expensive unless the client’s willing to absorb that in their contract with the call center.”

Innovative Training Solutions

Mitskog details how many call centers still rely on outdated training tools.

In order to plug this gap, Cyber Acoustics has developed a proprietary training system: Agent Assist Solution.

The system allows companies to connect to an agent’s headset via a secure Bluetooth connection, providing contact center coaches the ability to seamlessly listen in or take over calls at the press of a button.

Mitskog explained that the “innovations have been well received by financial services, healthcare, and CX centers, and we’ve filed IP to protect these advancements.”

To find out more about Cyber Acoustics and its CEO, Thor Mitskog, you can watch his two exclusive interviews with CX Today here and here.  

For more information on the company’s AC-404 headset and all of its other products, visit the website today.

Unveiled at HIMSS 2025, the “Talkdesk AI Agents for Healthcare” solution helps contact center leaders create multiple AI agents that automate particular queries.

So, a healthcare company may configure an AI agent to schedule an appointment, another to check authorizations, another to refill prescriptions, and so on.

However, the CX team won’t need to design a conversation tree for every customer contact reason.

Instead, healthcare organizations can describe the task in natural language. From there, they may point the AI Agent towards trusted knowledge content, data sources, and APIs to start automating queries immediately.

While many of Talkdesk’s rivals have released similar AI agents, the CCaaS stalwart may help accelerate time to value by preconfiguring sector-specific flows and tailored AI models.

Sharing more, Patty Hayward, GM of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Talkdesk, said: “Agentic AI tools represent a seismic shift for the consumer experience at healthcare organizations, enabling them to drive greater value for patients and members.

Our customers are already seeing significant impact and value from AI, and Talkdesk AI Agents for Healthcare gives organizations the ability to take their automation and digital strategies much further, much faster, but with the robust guardrails that our industry needs.

In developing separate AI agents – instead of a single AI agent – Talkdesk also helps contact centers take a more modular approach to contact automation.

After all, customer service teams can cautiously ramp up their AI approach, taking on one contact reason at a time instead of letting an untethered AI agent loose on patients.

As they do so, teams can – according to Talkdesk – create an agent with a prompt as simple as:

You will help patients schedule an appointment. Always be nice, courteous, and compliant. Access account information via Epic (or an alternative CRM). Escalate to a live agent if the patient gets upset.

The Talkdesk AI Agents for Healthcare offering then designs a prototype that the contact center can test, validate, and optimize.

Yet, that contact center doesn’t have to be in the cloud. Talkdesk is making its AI agents for healthcare available for “any” cloud-based or on-premise operation.

Other notable capabilities of Talkdesk AI Agents for Healthcare include the ability to personalize engagements on trusted data and adapt to a customer’s preferred language and channel.

The release comes after the CCaaS vendor launched Talkdesk AI Agents for Retail in January 2025.

As such, expect Talkdesk to keep creating AI agents that span industries, especially as this sector-specific innovation is proving to be a significant differentiator in the broader contact center space.

Talkdesk’s Three-Pronged Approach for Contact Center Differentiation

Alongside AI agents, Talkdesk creates sector-specific CCaaS solutions. That industry-focused approach is one of three core differentiators for the vendor.

Indeed, Talkdesk is choosing to hone in on six industries: financial services, healthcare, retail, government, transportation, and hospitality.

As it does so, Talkdesk considers key applications across each, delivering pre-configured integrations and workflows for the particular vertical.

A recent example of this in healthcare comes in its recent collaboration with Epic.

The move to create AI Agents for healthcare and retail signals an expansion of the strategy that was lauded in the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for CCaaS.

Alongside innovation, Talkdesk aims to differentiate through right-sized tech and AI.

Indeed, while Talkdesk typically caters to the midmarket and enterprises, it launched a CCaaS solution for SMBs in November 2024 to expand its total addressable market (TAM).

That release seems smart, given how many of its market rivals focus on delivering a broad suite of applications and features geared towards larger businesses.

In making this move, Talkdesk supports a frequently underserved market segment.

Finally, there’s AI. While many competitors will claim to differentiate here, Talkdesk has shown a streak for AI-based innovation – particularly since appointing Munil Shah as its Chief Technology Officer in April 2024.

Of course, there are the new industry-focused AI Agents. However, Talkdesk Navigator – which augments routing engines with GenAI – and Mood Insights – which builds on traditional sentiment analytics – also demonstrate the vendor’s original thinking.

Over-stretched hospitals; over-worked clinicians; every missed patient appointment a frustrating waste of time and money.

Indeed, healthcare systems all over the world are fighting daily battles to improve productivity and efficiency in ways which derive maximum value from investment and expenditure.

Communication technology can play a major role, with reminders driving down patient ‘no shows’ by up to 80%.

For healthcare organisations and their IT service partners, it is a case of a simple solution delivering disproportionately-positive outcomes.

“A major healthcare provider recently asked their patients how they could improve their service. At the top of the list was SMS appointment reminders – it seems so simple and yet, when it began to happen, the positive impact was immediate,” says Byron Yu, Product Owner at global enterprise-class provider ComputerTalk, whose ice Contact Center platform enabled the powerful alert functionality in question.

“Until recently, the preferred method of reminding patients about their appointments was by phone. But now some Patients prefer to interact via newer, more effective technologies and healthcare providers must keep pace with that demand or risk becoming increasingly inefficient.”

As well as issuing the actual reminder itself, patient SMS communications are effective because information contained within them remains easily accessible until the recipient chooses to delete it. As a result, messages can be read and re-read.

Each day, users of ComputerTalk’s ice platform simply align patient-specific reminders to lists of stored contact numbers to enable secure, automated sending. Clinics can then view reports showing delivery rates, open rates, and replies, such as confirmations or cancellations. Importantly, monthly KPI reports show a high-level breakdown of statistics such as the time saved by sending reminders l, and the cost savings achieved as a result of more appointments being kept.

“For Managed Service Providers or System Integrators, KPI reports can be tremendously helpful because they are able to demonstrate to healthcare customers that the solution works and delivers a return on investment,” says Yu.

“Showing that it is making patients happy, clinics happy, and that it is saving money gets a lot of traction.”

The cost-related benefits for healthcare providers are obvious. However, for patients themselves, not missing appointments also means their health and welfare is supported more effectively.

“It becomes much more than just a cost function,” says Yu. “Clinics have become very accustomed to patients showing up when they are expected, and patients feel more connected to their healthcare because they are receiving easy to access messages direct to their smartphone. As a result, frictions caused by missed appointments or a perceived lack of communication are significantly eased and the whole experience becomes a more positive one.”

To learn more about how ComputerTalk can help your or your customers’ healthcare businesses leverage the benefits of SMS, click here.

With fragmented data, complex backend integrations, and strict compliance regulations, there’s a lot to consider.  

Yet, as service leaders mull this over, staying on top of customer and patient contact volumes is proving tricky.  

Indeed, last year, 16 US states received warnings from federal Medicaid officials over long wait times, which resulted in high abandon rates.  

In each state, the average wait time exceeded 25 minutes, and hang-up rates reached 29 percent.  

Thankfully, new Five9 research – which unpacks data from verified healthcare companies – has uncovered tried-and-tested efficiency hacks for such contact centers to follow.  

Here are two excellent examples stripped from the study.  

1. Take the First 30 Seconds from Every Call for Human Care Navigators

Every call that enters a healthcare contact center requires user authentication to maintain HIPAA compliance (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).  

While regulations are similar in other sectors, like financial services, authentication processes are typically even more grueling in healthcare. Why? Because there are often many people with the same name. Also, people often call on behalf of other family members.  

Thankfully, AI and automation can streamline those processes. As Roni Jamesmeyer, Sr. Healthcare Product Marketing Manager at Five9, stated: 

“On every single call, it takes 30 seconds to validate who you are with two or three pieces of information like a zip code, the last four digits of your social security number, date of birth, or whatever the primary care GP uses. Simplifying and automating these steps can save a lot of time.”

Contact centers can achieve this with a task-specific bot on the front-end of the IVR and digital channels. There, the bot can authenticate callers, understand their intent, and pass them through to the best-skilled representative, along with additional patient context.  

That live agent – or human care navigator – may then dive into the crux of each conversation, cutting down handling times, reducing costs, and enhancing agent engagement.   

2. Automate These Two Queries & Reduce Contact Volumes by 50+ percent

There are two core reasons that make up the bulk of all phone calls into a health system: managing appointments and getting prescriptions. Together, these typically comprise 50-70 percent of all voice interactions – according to the Five9 research. 

Thankfully, simplifying these workflows is often straightforward via self-service mechanisms.  

Of course, not all patient intents are easy to automate, but mechanizing queries related to these two core contact drivers – such as appointment confirmations, reschedules, and cancelations – can be.  

Moreover, removing these more common calls from the contact mix lowers agent workloads and avoids the inevitable voicemail, which just requires double the work on the back-end to listen and respond. That’s time that staff simply doesn’t have – especially as brands factor in the time lag to return voicemail (likely hours later) and live agents have a frustrated patient to deal with, too. 

After making this point, Jamesmeyer stated: “Healthcare is still in the basic stages of simplifying and offloading redundant calls.  

“Many calls are simple FAQs like office hours, holiday schedules, location address, or parking information – and IVRs do a lot of this today. But, it requires listening to a phone tree list of options, and vulnerable patients must remember what numbers they need to press.

“Additionally, as every caller takes up a phone line to use the IVR tree menu, there is one less available phone line available for a potentially more urgent call.  

“Offloading these common questions allows nursing staff and skilled professionals to handle the more complex issues.” 

Also, by analyzing patient call intents, healthcare organizations can spot even more opportunities to automate transactional queries, which streamlines operations, and boost efficiency.  

Indeed, one cancer screening company within the Five9 study saved $1MN from simply offloading redundant questions about test kit shipping and 24/7 delivery.  

That example emphasized how opportunities to enhance the digital front door are abundant in the healthcare contact center!  

More Best Practices for the Healthcare Contact Center

While the two efficiency hacks above may afford healthcare contact centers some breathing room, there is a lot more they can do with that.  

One idea gaining momentum is developing integrated care communications systems, in which contact centers inside local health providers act as an orchestration hub between the other tech partners to collectively design a more streamlined communications journey.   

These journeys allow healthcare contact centers to meet patients on their channel of choice and then blend various modalities and AI to best fit their intent. That is the future.  

Moreover, as the Boomer generation ages, and the number of healthcare providers shrink, healthcare companies must start to consider such approaches to delivering care differently.  

Yet, it’s only one idea, as Jamesmeyer, who works with many healthcare leaders on their workflows, noted. In doing so, she recomened that healthcare contact centers: 

“Start with the end in mind and create a five-year plan that considers automation use cases to address administrative burdens.”

The Five9 e-guide gives more guidance on what that five-year plan should entail.  

An eBook for the Healthcare Contact Center of Tomorrow

From small clinics to large health systems from payers to third parties, and from pharmacies to MedTech companies, there are many “types” of healthcare contact centers. 

The “How AI Drives Value in Healthcare Communication” eBook contains advice from all, offering insightful texts and real ROI metrics to showcase the value of automation.  

Solution briefs tailored to both providers and payers are also available HERE. 

In addition, Five9 has an upcoming webinar with a current healthcare customer scheduled for Thursday, September 19, 2024, discussing their use case journey into automation to help them.  

To register for this webinar, follow the link: Exact Sciences Moves to the Cloud and Acheves 45% Containment Rate with Five9 

Broadcast from CCW 2024 in Las Vegas, we discuss how the AFMC is striving to optimize patient outcomes, considering:

1. How it’s using data analysis and mining to bolter patient experiences.
2. The value of spreading contact center insights across the healthcare organization.
3. Other key takeaways from the AFMC’s session at CCW 2024. 

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In an exclusive interview at Enterprise Connect 2024, Rob Scott of CX Today delves into an enlightening conversation with Eric Brosius, Vice President of Technology Services at Sun River Health.

With a vast operation that processes over 1 million calls and serves more than 250,000 patients annually, maintaining an exceptional patient experience remains a paramount goal for Sun River Health. The organization faced a significant turning point in 2018 following the acquisition of another healthcare entity, which came with the challenge of integrating a legacy contact center estate. Amidst navigating the complexities of the pandemic, Eric spearheaded an ambitious project to overhaul their contact center infrastructure, transitioning to a cloud-based solution.

This transformation was not just about technology but also about leveraging expertise to ensure a seamless transition and to maximize the benefits of their investment. Eric shares a captivating narrative of resilience, innovation, and strategic partnership with RingCentral, highlighting how their expertise was instrumental in enhancing Sun River Health’s implementation experience. This story is not only inspiring but serves as a testament to the power of technology in transforming patient care delivery.

Join us to uncover the insights, strategies, and outcomes of this transformational journey. Discover how Sun River Health has set a new benchmark in patient experience, leveraging cloud technology to ensure efficiency, scalability, and, most importantly, patient satisfaction.

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The ability to seamlessly flit between multiple calls of varying severity on-the-fly and provide the necessary support can literally be the difference between life and death.  

As such, speed and flexibility is crucial. Recognizing this, the South Central Ambulance Services (SCAS) NHS Foundation Trust sought a tailored, robust contact center solution. 

That’s critical. After all, as a 24/7 emergency ambulance service covering four English counties with a combined population of over seven million, the SCAS receives more than 500,000 emergency calls a year.  

To adequately deal with this volume of calls, the company had to handle 111 (non-emergency) and 999 (emergency) calls within the same technical infrastructure and operational units.  

This was essential, as agents required as seamless a transition as possible when rapidly reorienting from 111 calls to sudden incoming 999 calls.  

The flexibility and blended nature of what the SCAS required was beyond the remit of off-the-shelf solutions, resulting in the business having to provide a bespoke tool that allowed managers and supervisors to react to changing situations easily and efficiently. 

To create the tailored solution, Avaya worked with FourNet – a long-term partner and specialist in cloud services, with experience and expertise in working with the UK’s ambulance trusts – to achieve the following: 

• Implement seamless remote working to enable SCAS to recruit the best employees regardless of location. 
• Streamline overall architecture. 
• Incorporate specialist features and capabilities. 
• Introduce blended 111/999 call-handling.  

In discussing FourNet’s role in delivering the solution, Ben Ryland – Head of Public Sector at FourNet – commented: 

“FourNet helped SCAS gain recognition for delivering world-class quality care through digital technologies and information, setting the blueprint to enable other trusts to follow in its footsteps as quickly and effectively as possible.”

The Right Tool for the Job

Outlining the issues and changes required to resolve them is always a good start, but to bring the solution to life, Avaya looked to Engelbart Software’s esuits2 applications framework. 

The framework allowed Avaya to meet the SCAS’s specific requirements and even push the solution beyond the original plan.  

In the end, the combination of Avaya, FourNet, and Engelbart produced a tailored blended contact center platform that has transformed the SCA’s customer service department.  

Indeed, it allows agents to comfortably handle emergency calls during peak hours, alongside the providing the following value points: 

• Innovation support to enable SCAS digital transformation goals. 
• Improved patient experience by mitigating the impact of answering times. 
• Enhanced comms-screen providing full operational overview and status visibility between agent and supervisor. 
• Upgraded supervisor functionality, including listening into existing calls, changing skill/role assignment, changing agent status, remote agent logout, and replay of recorded calls for agents. 

Chris Hayden, Telecoms Manager at SCAS, was full of praise for the tool: 

“With help from FourNet and its partners, we ended up with a solution that fulfills our needs and more. The management and team leaders now have much more control and visibility over their agents than previously, and they are now able to manage the various contact center behaviors much more effectively.”

More pointedly, this success story showcases that Avaya and its partners are not content with pushing a one-size-fits-all solution. They understand the nuances that individual companies contain and are willing to put in the work to provide the best possible tool for their clients.   

Find out more about the contact center products and solutions that Avaya provides by visiting their website today.