We need to talk with a person! How systems with AI can solve it

Conversational AI

person using laptop computer

Photo: Christin Hume

Talking with your patients and maintaining relationships with your patients are going to be one of your top priorities when it comes to healthcare service delivery. A conversation that is quick, filled with valuable information, and easy to access is going to be a huge advantage. Chatbots offer a solution to a certain degree. However, in this article, we are going to explore a new, innovative conversation system with AI and how they can remove the need to talk with a person. So, without further ado, let's take a closer look.

Patient conversations - Why they are so important

Before we go into exploring the conversational AI systems, let's first briefly mention the importance of patient conversations. For starters, patients prefer to gain access to their healthcare service providers instantly. With the constantly developing technology, certain digital platforms and services have enabled faster communication between patients and their healthcare service providers. However, at the same time, patients generally prefer to talk with a real person. So, this is where the issue with chatbots begins.

Patient conversations are crucial because a patient can receive the necessary information for his or her healthcare journey through them. Patients, however, need accurate, valuable, and relevant information. While chatbot systems can provide a quick answer to a FAQ kind of conversation, patients prefer communicating with real people and medical personnel. So, as you can see, patient conversations are crucial to any healthcare system anywhere in the world. They build trust, patient relationships, and allow for an exchange of important information.

The problems with chatbots and call centers

So, we have already mentioned how chatbots do have a purpose and can offer certain important information, patients prefer communicating with people. This is mainly because chatbots are not capable of having a flow of exchange with people. They can answer a particular set of questions but the conversation ends as soon as a question not listed for the chatbot is asked. Furthermore, chatbots answer quickly but shortly. The answers are very short, brief, and not well-suited for healthcare systems that wish to establish better relationships with patients and allow patients to get valuable information through these kinds of digital platforms and services.

Call centers on the other hand are an alternative solution. However, they come with a handful of problems as well. It is safe to say that call centers are not the most popular when it comes to conversation with clients or in this case, patients. Traditional call centers are operated by people, however, as mentioned already, call centers come with a number of different communication problems. Namely, the waiting times are usually pretty bad. In addition to this, when using call centers in healthcare, patients usually experience a lot of agent transfer. That is to say, patients are switched from one agent to another frequently. On top of that, call centers operated by people cannot operate 24/7/. So, there is no constant access to healthcare service providers. Call centers are also disliked by patients due to unpleasant conversations that are sometimes experienced as well as agents not being properly trained to answer questions asked by patients. So, how can these issues be solved with the use of conversational AI systems that are currently expanding around the world? Well, let us take a look.

The use of conversational AI systems for communication with patients

To begin with, we should mention first that all chatbot systems are powered by AI but not all chatbots use conversational AI. Basic chatbots have the ability to only engage in a FAQ-like conversation. They can also perform limited tasks when conversing with people. Therefore, in order to solve the patients' need to have a conversation like they would with a person, conversational AI needs to come into play.

So, what are the advantages of conversation AI systems, and why are they so much different from the rest of chatbot systems or AI? Well, for starters. conversation AI systems that use a proprietary natural language processing engine, built 100% for human healthcare interactions can improve patients' journey and experience. Natural language processing or NLP for short, allows a machine to understand what we say in our natural, everyday language. Slang, abbreviations, mispronunciations, and so on are all observed by this kind of AI. A huge advantage to such a system is the fact that it can constantly learn and develop. This means that it gets better and better with each interaction it has with patients. On top of that, if a mistake is made, the AI learns from it and cannot repeat it while call centers for example that are operated by real people have a far larger margin of error.

Innovative AI systems that use NLP help healthcare service providers establish a quicker and more reliable conversation. This kind of AI can answer all of the patients' questions and also maintain a regular conversation that seems like it's taking place with a person. On top of that, this kind of AI system can be used to set up digital services and platforms for online scheduling of appointments, tracking of absent patients, educating patients, forming preventive campaigns, and so much more.

The intelligent analysis is also an integral part of these AI systems and allows it to analyze each conversation and approach each patient differently depending on how the conversation goes and the patient's needs. This makes conversations personal and completelnaturalra. What does this mean for patients? Well, essentially, they have a feeling like they are communicating with a real person and they can properly get the information needed for their healthcare journey.

AI systems in communication with patients - In a nutshell

So, to sum up, what we have said, patients prefer to have real, natural communication with their healthcare services providers. Chatbots and regular call centers alone cannot provide this due to the problems they come with which we have mentioned above. However, with the use of new and innovative AI systems that use NLP engines, healthcare services providers can set up a natural, quick, and reliable conversation with their patients. Patients get to access the healthcare information they need instantly and they also get to communicate properly and naturally as if they were conversing with a real person. The conversation is also personal due to AI's ability to approach each patient differently. All things considered, conversation services and systems with AI solve the issue of a patient's need to communicate with a person.

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