Multilingual AI Contact Centers Can Improve Healthcare Practice Communication

The U.S. has always been a nation of immigrants, and Americans rightly cherish their ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity. But when it comes to healthcare, linguistic diversity can turn from a cause for celebration to a cause for concern.

A 2007 study in the International Journal for Quality in Health Care examined differences between English-speaking and non-English-speaking patients and their risk for adverse events in U.S. hospitals.

The study found that when adverse events occurred, they resulted in physical harm for 49.1% of patients with limited English proficiency, whereas only 29.5% of patients who speak English were harmed.

Understanding the Multilingual AI Contact Center Revolution in Healthcare

healow Genie will help medical practices overcome communication barriers through the use of natural language processing (NLP), integrated into a comprehensive, AI-powered contact center solution.

Key Components of healow Genie’s AI Technology

healow Genie’s AI contact center solution features four major modes to strengthen Patient Engagement.

AI Agent is the first point of contact for a patient. Each call is instantly answered by a healow Genie AI Agent, which can offer quick responses to common inquiries, through voice, text, or chatbot. This is where many patients will get answers to questions about hours, locations, or managing appointments.

Intelligent Assistant handles more complex questions. When a patient needs to speak with a provider or has a question that requires detailed interaction, healow Genie escalates that call to a human agent who can provide additional information or connect them to a provider.

Automated After-Hours Service ensures that practices can offer the best Patient Engagement around the clock. If a patient calls after hours, healow Genie can field those calls, create a transcript and summary, relay the information to an on-call provider designated by your practice, and let the caller know when they can expect a call back.

Conversational Smart Campaigns allow practices to engage in proactive outreach to patients, where for reminders about wellness visits and routine screenings, to improve compliance with medication regimens, or to send additional reminders to patients who have had no-shows.

Seamless EHR Integration for Comprehensive Patient Care

By handling patient queries and two-way communications — and integrating the results of those interactions into the practice EHR and patient records — healow Genie will mean greater continuity of care.

Genie will debut in English and soon thereafter add multilingual capabilities to address the communication needs of practices and patients.

One of the key conclusions of the 2007 International Journal article cited above was the need for providers to “collect reliable language data at the patient point of entry and document the language services provided during the patient-provider encounter.”

Simply put, contact center solutions that lack a strong multilingual capacity won’t be able to accommodate the needs of non-English-speaking patients as well as those that do.

Real-World Benefits of Bilingual AI Contact Centers for Healthcare Practices

A 2020 study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine revealed that while more than 25 million Americans have limited English proficiency (LEP), but a minority of healthcare providers offer their patients professional interpretation services.

The study found:

• More than three-quarters of physicians used bilingual staff and/or patient family members for interpretation, but 40% had never used professional interpreters.
• While 50.8% offered patients translated educational materials, the percentage offering translated materials fell to just 25.4% for advanced medical directives and 20.9% for care plans.
• More than a third of providers — 34.5% — offered patients no translated materials.

Enhancing Patient Engagement Across Language Barriers

These studies make clear that in addition to the barrier that exists between a patient and a provider who do not share a common language, there is also a gap between practices that deploy multilingual strategies and those that don’t.

A generation of AI-powered tools that take multilingual capabilities to a new level will allow practices to leverage the astounding power of machine learning while freeing their staff from the need to answer dozens or hundreds of phone calls each day.

Two-way, conversational capabilities make interactions with patients feel natural and personalized, akin to what they would experience with another human.

Implementation and Integration: Getting Started with healow Genie

Integrating the healow Genie AI-powered contact center solution with your EHR means giving your providers and staff the best possible means of delivering the highest-quality care to every patient.

Scheduling a demo for healow Genie is easy, and the sooner your organization sees first-hand what Genie can do, the better you can plan when and how to implement Genie throughout your organization.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can healow Genie’s capabilities integrate with our existing EHR system?

healow Genie is an EHR-agnostic solution that can be used alongside or integrated with any EHR and other call center solution. Once integrated with your EHR, all Genie’s features, including the outbound calling feature, are integrated with the EHR and patient records.

What types of patient inquiries can healow Genie’s AI system handle automatically?

healow Genie’s AI Agent can handle common patient requests, covering such queries as hours, locations, and when a patient is due to visit your office, as well as relay patients requests for prescription medication refills or referrals to a provider who can review and approve them.

How does the system maintain patient privacy while offering support?

Genie uses industry-standard encryption and security protocols and is fully compliant with HIPAA regulations. No patient data leaves the provider’s secure data cloud, which is audited against the Service Operation Controls (SOC) reporting framework by independent third-party auditors. Our cloud offering uses Microsoft® Azure® data centers that have achieved multiple certifications, including HITRUST CSF certification, one of the most widely recognized security certifications in the healthcare industry.

Take the Next Step: Schedule a Demo of healow Genie’s AI Contact Center

Click here to schedule a free, no-obligation demo of healow Genie’s AI contact center solution. Demos cover Genie’s major features, and our experts will answer any questions or concerns. They will work with your practice to determine how Genie can best meet your needs and explain what to expect during each step of the implementation process.