AI Patient Engagement: 8 Ways It Can Improve Patient Interaction

Artificial intelligence (AI) is arguably the most exciting technological advancement since the internet. Its vast data-processing capabilities combined with machine learning algorithms take normal digital systems to the next level. It’s no surprise then that the healthcare industry has been rapidly adopting AI technology in recent years to manage patient data more efficiently and automate important tasks to help improve patient satisfaction and increase patient engagement.

What is patient engagement?

Patient engagement refers to how involved a patient is in their own healthcare journey. It includes measuring how active they are in the decision-making process while receiving treatments and how prepared they are to self-manage their health moving forward.

Patient engagement is an extremely important factor in patient health and a strong indicator of overall health in the future. For hospitals and healthcare providers, patient engagement is the key to positive health outcomes, which is why the healthcare industry spends so much time and effort developing engagement strategies.

5 Benefits of an Effective Patient Engagement Strategy

Every type of healthcare business, from the emergency room to women’s health clinics, can experience positive changes by implementing patient engagement strategies. An effective patient engagement strategy will improve the patient experience and bring significant benefits to both the patient and the healthcare provider, including the following:

Improved Health Outcomes

Patients who actively participate in their healthcare are more invested in their own well-being. This naturally leads to higher motivation to keep up with prescribed treatments and medications, which ultimately leads to faster and better recoveries. The result is fewer provider visits and a lower risk of emergency admission due to complications.

Reduced Cost of Care

Some great patient engagement examples are telehealth and remote monitoring. These virtual options lower costs by reducing the number of staff needed to care for each patient and freeing up hospital space for more seriously ill patients. They also reduce the number of people using emergency services and urgent care, which lowers the total healthcare usage and in turn, the total cost for providing healthcare to each individual.

Improvements in Patient Knowledge and Understanding

Highly engaged patients are more informed, which means they’re more likely to be active participants in decision-making situations and partner with their providers to improve their health. They also have the knowledge required to recognize signs of declining health so they can seek treatment earlier before conditions worsen, improving their overall health in the future and reducing the need for intensive and costly treatments.

Patients Take Better Responsibility for Their Health

With the increased knowledge that high engagement brings, patients are better equipped to self-manage their health in between visits with their providers. This self-care makes all the difference. Because they actively participate in managing their health and treatments, they’re more confident in their decisions and informed about treatment options, which makes them more likely to take steps like regular preventative care.

Increased Revenue for Healthcare Providers

By investing in engagement strategies, healthcare providers can raise their patients’ satisfaction with the services they receive. This step ultimately strengthens the relationship between patient and provider and makes the patient more likely to return to your business in the future and refer their friends and family to you as well. Higher patient loyalty and more referrals mean increased revenue for your healthcare business.

How can AI improve patient experience and patient engagement?

AI in healthcare can improve both the patient experience and patient engagement in three main ways:

1. Streamline Administrative Work

AI has superior pattern recognition software, which means it can analyze current processes and identify areas for improvement. It can also be used to assist with administrative tasks, such as auto-composing follow-up emails to patients or summarizing doctor notes and patient files.

2. Automating Key Patient Interactions and Repetitive Tasks

Simple tasks like scheduling appointments and sending appointment reminders can be time-consuming. AI automates more patient interactions, working independently to schedule appointments based on a provider’s current availability and automatically sending personalized reminders to patients about upcoming appointments.

3. Optimizing Patient Communication

AI can become the first touchpoint for customers, fielding questions and routing incoming queries to the correct sources. Because it can operate 24/7, AI ensures every patient receives a timely response to inquiries and helps encourage clear communication throughout their entire healthcare journey with automated follow-up messages.

Top 8 Use Cases for AI in Patient Engagement

Intelligent Virtual Assistants (Chatbots)

One of the most common AI use cases in healthcare, virtual assistants and chatbots, can work autonomously to answer common questions via a live chat on the company website or even answer incoming phone calls and help direct callers to the appropriate department.

Intuitive Self-Service Patient Portal

Self-service portals are a great example of AI patient engagement. Thanks to AI, patients can be given the ability to manage their own health information and perform tasks like scheduling their own appointments. They also can receive tailored recommendations for providers or next steps in their care based on an analysis of their history and health information.

360-Degree View of the Patient

The healthcare industry uses data from many sources. AI can review and process these large datasets and compile them into one location. It can summarize the data and pull out key insights that are important for a provider to know. This leads to better care as providers can quickly get a 360 view of their patient’s needs to deliver timely services.

Risk Assessments for Preventative Care

AI can be trained on historical datasets to recognize signs of common diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and more, then be used as an early detection tool. AI is capable of analyzing not just textual data like lab reports, but also imagery like X-rays and scans to recognize patterns between patients diagnosed with the disease and the current patient being treated.

Healthcare Workforce Optimization

AI can help identify problem areas and inefficiencies, and then suggest ways to optimize work schedules. This enables providers to allocate resources in the most efficient way possible and helps reduce wait times for patients.

Automation of Medical Coding and Billing Processes

Coding and billing is an extremely detail-oriented process. Spelling errors and accidental keystrokes can cause huge delays in coding and billing, slowing down the entire process. AI-powered coding and billing systems automate the process, increasing speed and precision.

Patient No-Show and Late Show Management

No-shows and late appointments are costly behaviors. AI can improve patient engagement by automating appointment reminders and giving patients an online scheduler where they can easily cancel and reschedule appointments when a conflict arises. It can also guide patients through completing registration documents online so they can be admitted faster and not set you further behind schedule by completing paperwork in the office.

Automated Doctor’s Notes Summarization

Particularly in the mental health field, transcribing doctor’s notes into a general management system can be tedious. AI can help speed the process up by not only transcribing notes for providers but also creating summaries of the notes with key takeaways.

Increase Patient Engagement with Podium

One of the most important patient experience strategies you can implement is investing in technologies that encourage and improve patient engagement.

Podium’s AI CSR is the leading solution for automation in the healthcare industry. Operating 24/7, it delivers fast responses to patient questions and is also equipped with image recognition capabilities. While some AI tools can sound robotic and impersonal, Podium’s AI CSR is conversational and sounds like a real person. It turns every interaction into a meaningful conversation with genuine dialogue that adapts to user responses in real time. Fast responses with better conversations lead to happier patients and higher levels of patient engagement.

Learn more about Podium’s AI CSR and start improving your business operations and patient experiences today.