When you think about industries adopting the latest automation technology, banking, insurance, and retail organizations are likely to be the earliest adopters. Healthcare and hospitals typically lag, hesitant to change due to the number of regulations, patient privacy and safety concerns, and reimbursement constraints. In just a few short months, Covid flipped the entire healthcare industry on its head. As many hospitals were reeling from revenue losses and a simultaneous surge in operating expenses during the pandemic, this situation provided the long-overdue trigger to innovate.
With patients desperate for accurate medical information, symptom screening, and vaccine appointment scheduling, providers were inundated with calls and struggling to respond. Many hospitals turned to technology and automation to relieve the burden. For example, virtual assistants and chatbots help answer patient inquiries without burning out nurses and contact center staff. These virtual assistants allow patients to engage with hospitals at any time to enable self-service care navigation and triage. As we move to the next normal in healthcare, administrators now have new tools at their disposal to rethink their service delivery and patient engagement strategy.