When it comes to the patient experience, time isn’t on our side. U.S. adults spend the equivalent of an entire workday each month coordinating care for themselves and/or their family, according to a Harris poll. The same poll found that 56% of American adults wait more than a week for an appointment, while many others skip healthcare altogether, with 30% saying they don’t have the time and 25% saying it takes too long to get an appointment. Even when patients get an appointment, they wait again (in the waiting room, exam room, and to be checked out) which affect patient satisfaction scores.
The good news is that AI tools are ready to make significant improvements to the patient experience, especially when it comes to giving patients and clinicians their time back. Doing so increases access and leads to better healthcare experiences and outcomes. For providers, better patient experiences also mean higher productivity and improved performance metrics, thanks in part to a 2020 rule from CMS that links the quality of the patient experience with reimbursement. But in order to understand how best to deploy AI tools, we first need to discuss the barriers to care.
What’s standing in the way?
The healthcare system is facing a “perfect storm” of increased demand for services, a workforce shortage, a burned-out labor pool, and rising costs. Healthcare providers are also producing, managing and consuming more data than they ever have before. Today, healthcare data makes up 30% of the world’s data volume, which is impossible for physicians, nurses, clinical assistants and other industry professionals to handle with paper or spreadsheet-based processes. The trillion-dollar US health care industry won’t be able to simply throw people and money at the problem. Instead, the industry needs to use AI and other technologies to do more with less.
On the demand side, the U.S. has an aging population. According to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, people age 65 years and older made up 17 percent of the population in 2020, but by 2040 that number is expected to grow to 22 percent, increasing demand for healthcare services. An aging population also impacts the supply of healthcare services. According to the American Nurses Association, nurses are retiring faster than new nurses can be trained. Meanwhile, an aging physician population, along with burnout from the pandemic, prompted the AMA to declare, “the physician shortage crisis is here.” Worse, these supply and demand challenges are further exacerbated by rising healthcare costs. According to a PwC report, in 2024 the industry is facing a 7% year-over-year cost increase, up from 5.5% and 6% in 2022 and 2023, respectively. In addition, more patients are searching for value-based care, which requires healthcare providers to spend more time managing patients proactively, instead of reacting once there is a problem that needs to be addressed. With these combined challenges, it’s no wonder healthcare workers are pressed for time, more stressed and retiring early.
But while this perfect storm undermines the ability to deliver great patient experiences, physicians and healthcare systems also have to consider the challenges around consumer expectations. The paradigm shift is also here, patients are now consumers of healthcare services and demand the same service and attention they get from other industries along with empathy, sympathy and precision medicine. They expect omnichannel communications that flow seamlessly between text, email, and in-person visits. This includes timely responses and status updates, as well as always-on customer service. In other words, patients expect healthcare experiences to mirror the digital experiences encountered everywhere else in their busy lives. But that expectation isn’t being met, according to the Harris poll, which found that 65% of respondents said coordinating and managing healthcare is “overwhelming” and “time-consuming.”
How AI tools can improve the patient experience
While it’s tempting to think about the futuristic aspects of AI, it’s important to ground any discussion of AI tools in the here and now in order to improve the patient experience. It’s important to use AI tools as a supplement, not a replacement, for human interaction. After all, the goal is to free up time to focus on people and communicate in a timely manner. A Journal of Public Health article is instructive. The authors identified a range of factors that influence patient experience, then grouped them into three interconnected themes:
- Providing safe, timely, and effective treatment
- Fostering human connections with caring and attentive staff
- Providing a comfortable and healing environment
Broadly speaking, healthcare providers should measure every AI tool against the impact it has on one or more of these themes. But, for the sake of clarity, let’s address three situations where AI can return time to patients and providers: when accessing care, during provider visits, and after the visit.
Access
AI tools are especially promising here because so many of the things support staff do to move patients through the system, like scheduling and providing standardized instructions, are ripe for automation. This approach to administrative activities frees up time for physicians to provide value-based proactive, rather than reactive, care.
In fact, automated communication tools that can benefit from AI upgrades are already in use. Improvements to scheduling, routing patients to the correct provider, and instructing patients on what they need to do to prepare for routine procedures, like colonoscopies, are all within our reach.
If deployed thoughtfully, these tools can super-charge support staff by freeing them up to address specific non-routine issues. But remember, these AI chat tools need to be safe, which means they must be trained on approved, evidence-based data sets, rather than the open web. Moreover, AI-driven communication solutions need to personable, helpful, and easy to use in order to make the best use of a patient’s time.
The visit
Consider an AI tool most doctors are probably already familiar with: transcription. Obviously, an AI transcription tool needs to be HIPAA compliant, but it also needs to make patients feel like their privacy is of the utmost concern. In other words, patients need to be able to trust AI tools as much as they trust the providers who use them.
How does AI transcription improve the patient experience? Transcription frees up doctors and nurses to spend more time with their patients and sufficiently explain new treatments, the latest test results and other key details. But it’s not just about having more time, it’s about creating quality time when doctors are able to focus on the patient, not the chart. Moreover, an AI tool can integrate communications from other channels (phone, email, text, etc.) into in-person visits, so that providers have the full picture and patients feel listened to, without needing to repeat themselves.
These kinds of tools also have a positive impact on the healthcare system because AI transcription decreases routine work for providers and administrative staff. AI as the adjunctive faculty takes barriers to care and turns them into improved quality, value, informed decisions and satisfaction. With those extra hours, providers can see additional patients, improving both access and quality of care for everyone.
After the visit
AI tools can also make a big difference for patients after they leave the doctor’s office or hospital. Currently, providing patients with discharge instructions or instructions for medication is time-consuming, impersonal, and insufficient. Anecdotally, patients see this whenever a prescription is filled at the pharmacy, waiting around for an overworked pharmacist to read us boilerplate instructions. If the patient doesn’t have any questions, it’s just a waste of time and money. But if patients do have questions, it’s often difficult to get timely answers. An AI tool that walks patients through these kinds of instructions on their own time, with accurate information pulled from doctor-approved sources, would be more efficient and cost effective.
AI also provides a more personal experience because it has unlimited time to repeat instructions and provide answers to follow-up questions that deal with relevant patient information. For example, 87% of hospitals report using pre-translated discharge instructions for patients who don’t speak English. That means non-English speakers are denied the opportunity for personalized discharge instructions. An AI tool could quickly and cost-effectively translate a provider’s personalized discharge instructions, as well as translate question responses, for millions of Americans who cannot access care in their preferred language.
AI Creates the Patient Experience Demanded Today
AI will transform healthcare, but as technology leaders think about next steps, it’s critical to use these tools to provide care that meets today’s patient expectations for quality. Prioritizing personalization that scales to meet rising demand should be the foremost priority. Likewise, healthcare providers need always-on communications tools to expand access to patients who don’t have the time to navigate the current system. Finally, the industry must prioritize AI tools that reduce costs so that human healthcare providers aren’t seen as bottlenecks in a bureaucracy, but instead as trusted and compassionate healers.
About Michael Zacharski
Michael Zacharski, CEO of Brand Engagement Network (BEN), is a seasoned executive with 20+ years of experience driving growth and innovation in the technology industry. Throughout his career, he has founded and operated multiple businesses, contributing to various utility patents that underpin advertising technology and omnichannel communications. He holds a bachelor’s degree from New York University.