Executive summary

A major health system faced a critical challenge: 40-50% of open medical orders remained unfilled, leading to gaps in patient care and missed revenue opportunities. Traditional contact center operations, including human agents making outbound calls and basic messaging solutions, were too costly to scale and not effective in reaching patients. This case study explores how implementing Al-powered call systems can transform call center operations and improve patient access

The challenge: streamlining complex healthcare workflows

Traditional live agent calls reached voicemail 60-80% of the time, creating frustrating customer interactions and low agent productivity. Alternative communication channels like SMS messaging and email showed minimal patient engagement, failing to fill open orders, close care gaps, or provide the personalized experiences needed in healthcare.

Traditional Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems and basic chatbots can't handle the complexity of healthcare workflows or provide the natural language processing capabilities required for meaningful customer conversations during outreach. The organization needed an innovative solution to scale their patient communications while reducing operational costs.

The solution: implementing AI agents for automated outreach

The health system partnered with ActiumHealth to deploy an advanced AI platform with true conversational capabilities that transformed their contact center operations. The solution integrated multiple AI tools and technologies: 

• Conversational AI powered by sophisticated large language models (LLMs)
• Virtual agents capable of handling complex customer inquiries in real-time
• EMR integration to reach out to patients identified by existing worklist 
• Advanced analytics providing actionable insights and quality assurance

The AI-powered call center solution deployed virtual assistants that could automatically reach out to patients identified in an EMR worklist. These assistants would identify the patient and remind them of the open order. They could understand if patients were still interested in scheduling and, if not, what barriers were preventing them. The virtual assistants engaged in natural customer conversations. Finally, they transferred callers to human agents as needed. The system's ability to automate repetitive tasks demonstrated the powerful combination of artificial intelligence and human expertise. 

Implementation and use cases

The deployment focused on two key service lines, with AI agents handling thousands of outbound patient calls daily. The virtual agents demonstrated sophisticated capabilities including:

• Multilingual support for diverse patient populations
• Automated handling of common customer inquiries
• Collection of reasons not to schedule to provide insight to the customer
• Seamless integration with workforce management systems

The AI platform excelled at streamlining customer interactions while gathering valuable customer data for continuous optimization. Contact center managers received detailed metrics and summaries of customer conversations, enabling better operational efficiency and agent performance monitoring.

The results: transforming customer support and agent performance

The implementation delivered remarkable improvements in both patient experience and operational metrics:

Patient engagement:

• Over 60% of patients engaged with the AI agent, providing information about whether they had already received care elsewhere or explaining their reasons for wanting or declining to schedule an appointment
• 43% of patients reached by the AI agents agreed to a transfer to a staff member for scheduling
• Improved patient journey leading to better healthcare outcomes
• Enhanced customer sentiment through personalized interactions
• Improved handling of complex issues

Operational efficiency:

• 7.8x boost in agent productivity. Previously only 13% of calls led an agent to reach an interested patient. With ActiumHealth, 100% of calls are with patients interested in scheduling.
• 12x reduction in cost per interested patient reached (from $19 to $1.50)
• Streamlined call center operations
• Optimized handle time for customer calls

Revenue impact:

• $39M total annual impact through comprehensive platform implementation
• 49k+ appointments scheduled annually  
• 66% scheduling success rate for calls transferred to staff

The advancement in contact center AI technology enabled the health system to transform time-consuming manual processes into efficient, automated workflows. The AI solution's ability to handle high call volumes while maintaining quality assurance standards demonstrated the potential of generative AI in healthcare settings.

Future impact and scaling success

Based on these impressive results, the health system is expanding the use of AI-powered call center solutions across additional service lines. The success of this implementation showcases how conversational AI and virtual assistants can revolutionize healthcare provider operations while improving customer engagement.

The solution continues to evolve, with ongoing optimization through machine learning and enhanced predictive analytics capabilities. Contact center managers now have access to comprehensive metrics and actionable insights, enabling continuous improvement in agent performance and customer satisfaction.

Key takeaways

• AI technology can dramatically improve operational efficiency while maintaining high customer satisfaction
• Intelligent automation of repetitive tasks frees human agents to focus on complex issues
• Advanced LLM and machine learning capabilities enable natural customer conversations
• Integrated omnichannel solutions provide consistent customer experience
• Real-time analytics and sentiment analysis drive continuous improvement

This case study demonstrates how AI-powered call center software can transform healthcare operations, improving both provider efficiency and patient experience. The successful implementation of virtual agents and conversational AI has created a new standard for customer support in healthcare settings, proving that advanced AI solutions can deliver measurable improvements in customer engagement while reducing operational costs.  

Unlike generic AI solutions, ActiumHealth is built for healthcare—understanding medical terminology, following care protocols, and delivering real results from day one.