How AI Assistants streamline appointments and patient care
Reading time: 6 min | Mar 18, 2024
Introduction
In our previous blog post, we discussed the need to reimagine the patient journey, explored the benefits of AI assistants, and presented statistics that support their use in healthcare. What we also established is that to get to this point you need to know what to do. That is why we provided a blueprint of a step-by-step action plan. The plan gives you an overview of the main topics and questions you should address, to be able to implement an AI Assistant into your organization.
In this blog, we will go into detail and discuss how the patient journey looks right now when booking an online appointment and what it could look like after implementing an AI assistant.
The current landscape of a patient journey map
Let's begin by understanding patient journey maps. A patient journey map is a visual tool that helps healthcare providers design a seamless experience for patients across all touchpoints, encompassing interactions, user thoughts, and feelings. The goal is to create a patient experience that considers all interactions with the healthcare facility, its services, and the technology used. This includes understanding user thoughts and feelings about the platform.
An example of an average healthcare journey looks like this:
Awareness: The patient recognizes a need for healthcare, researches providers, and selects a facility.
Pre-visit: The patient checks appointment availability, schedules the visit, and receives a reminder.
Initial Visit: The patient arrives at the facility, receives information, and begins education about their condition.
Treatment: The patient undergoes testing, receives a diagnosis, and communicates with healthcare professionals throughout the process.
Post-visit: The patient completes treatment and receives follow-up care.
Although the typical healthcare journey seems simple, the reality is often more complex. Patients frequently encounter frustrations and delays in getting the care they need.
A scenario to make things more clear
Now, let's explore the common challenges patients face when booking appointments online through a healthcare facility's website or app.
We are going to imagine the following scenario:
Laura thinks she has a common cold, but she has been coughing terribly for the last week, so she started to think she might need some medication. But what medication does she need? Does she need some tests done? What specialist does she need to look up for an appointment? After deciding what specialty the doctor should be, which one is the best for her?
Laura, like most of us, would expect a quick and smooth process. Let’s see what Laura’s journey looks like:
Step 1: Internet researchsome text
Laura will go online and look for information that will help her decide what type of doctor she should be looking for in the first place.
She finally decides a generalist doctor should do the trick as she only has a common cold.
Step 2: Choosing the right clinic/hospitalsome text
Now she will do some more research to find the right clinic or hospital in her area.
Step 3: Visit the clinic’s website some text
After deciding on the right clinic, she goes on the website and sees you can book an appointment online. Great!
Step 4: Book online appointmentsome text
Laura is happy she can book the appointment online and does not have to wait a long time on the phone to get it.
While booking the appointment, she will be asked to choose the specialty area she wants. Given her previous research, she chose “General medicine”.
Now she will be asked to choose a doctor.
Once again, Laura is confronted by the unknown. Given that she has little to no information about the doctors on this list she now has to go back to the internet research and look up all the doctors from this list so that she can choose the right one for her.
This creates a loophole of going back and forth between the website and internet research to find the right choice.
Step 5: Book the appointment after finding the specialistsome text
After a lot of research, Laura has now found, what she thinks, is the right doctor for her and can finally book the appointment online.
Step 6: Appointment Daysome text
It is finally the day when Laura can get treatment for her terrible cough that has been bothering her for a few weeks.
She may have gotten a reminder in advance to not forget about the appointment (if the clinic provides such a service) and stands now at the front desk in the clinic.
Step 7: Check-in some text
After being nicely welcomed, Laura is now asked to complete a form (on paper most of the time) where she must mention information about Insurance type, age, address, symptoms, medical history, medication, allergies, etc.
After filling up this form she must bring it back to the reception desk and then again take a seat in the waiting area and wait for the doctor to call her.
Step 8: Examinationsome text
Laura finally gets to see the doctor, who after looking at the form she just filled out, asks again for her symptoms.
The doctor does an initial evaluation and tells Laura that she sadly did not book the right appointment, given her cough, she actually needs a pulmonologist.
Not so good news for Laura. She now has to go back home and start this whole process once again.
It does seem like a lot of stress and unnecessary steps for one to go through to just get to see the right doctor. Things can and should be done more easily for the patients and the healthcare providers.
What would this process look like with the help of an AI assistant?
Let’s take a closer look at now on how this journey could be simplified with the help of AI assistants:
Steps 1 to 3 will, maybe, remain so for the foreseeable future, given the multitude of healthcare providers and the different and specific needs of each patient.
AI assistants can significantly improve steps 4 to 8 of the patient journey. How can this be achieved?
Instead of having the patient go through these steps you could implement an AI assistant on your website or app which takes the load of the patient but also from your employees.
Steps 4, 5, and 6, for instance, could look like this: some text
Upon arriving at the healthcare facility's website, Laura interacts with an AI assistant that guides her through the booking process, eliminating the frustrating research loop she previously experienced.
First the assistant will ask Laura for basic information like: some text
Age
Insurance type
Area where she wants to find a doctor
Symptoms
Medical history
Medication
Allergies
Previous tests
If she is open to taking an earlier appointment that is not covered by her insurance, etc.
Once Laura provides the necessary information, including her symptoms, the AI assistant recommends a suitable specialist and suggests an appointment slot.
If Laura accepts the suggestion the assistant has made, the assistant will automatically book the appointment without Laura having to do anything further.
All Laura must do now is wait for her appointment.
But as Laura waits for her appointment the AI assistant will generate a document that will be at the disposal of her doctor for the examination containing all the information provided by Laura from the comfort of her own home.
Fast forward to the appointment day. Laura will present herself at the clinic where, if the clinic is optimized, she will no longer have to wait at the reception desk. She will be able to scan her QR code provided by the AI assistant that checks her in and automatically tells her where to wait. Thus, taking the load of the employees at the reception desk. This is a feature that could also be used by patients who did not book an online appointment but don’t want to wait in a long line. They could scan a QR code put at their disposal from the clinic and check in online.
After waiting in the appointed area, it is time for Laura’s evaluation, where she will have more time to discuss with the doctor, given that the doctor has already gotten and read the initial information. Of course the functionality of the AI assistant can and must be enhanced further by integrating it in a general 360 degree patient account concept, where the assistant will be able to pull up also relevant historical information about the patient and summarize it and put it at the doctor's disposal. This leaves more patient time for the dr. by having to spend less time searching and going through documents.
After the evaluation Laura will go home with the right treatment for her annoying cough and not have to wait any longer because the AI assistant has provided the right specialist for her from the beginning.
Conclusion
To sum up, the implementation of AI assistants presents a promising avenue for revolutionizing the patient journey in healthcare. By automating tasks, providing personalized guidance, and optimizing operational processes, AI assistants have the potential to significantly enhance the accessibility, efficiency, and quality of care delivery. Embracing these technological innovations is essential in fostering a more seamless and patient-centric healthcare experience.
