Less than six months after rolling out voice AI in its call centers, one nonprofit health system is already seeing signs that the technology is successful in improving the patient experience.
Allina Health — a Minnesota-based health system with 12 hospitals and more than 80 clinics — began rolling out SoundHound AI’s call center tool across its enterprise in January. The tool is an AI-powered phone assistant designed to make it easier and faster for patients to get help when they call their provider.
Instead of waiting on hold, callers are greeted by an AI agent named Alli, who helps with common requests, explained Michael Anderson, SoundHound’s executive vice president of enterprise AI.
For example, patients can use Alli to book and reschedule appointments, as well as ask a wide range of general questions about things like hours, locations, services and billing.
SoundHound is also working on features that allow callers to refill medications and get help finding doctors or clinics, Anderson added.
He also pointed out that the tool connects patients to a human representative if they need help with something complicated or prefer to speak with a person. Alli smoothly transfers the call without the caller needing to start over or repeat any details.
“By handling these everyday tasks, Alli helps reduce wait times and lets Allina’s staff focus on more complex or sensitive patient needs,” Anderson remarked.
Minda Garcia, vice president of Allina Health’s customer experience center, said that the health system deployed Alli to address growing demands on its customer experience staff — which were due in part to increasing patient needs.
“We want to improve systems to meet our patients where they are by connecting with them in the manner they choose and to provide our care team members with the tools that will allow them additional time to support patients who require greater care navigation,” Garcia stated.
She noted that at Allina, all employees are seen as care team members. This means Alli is now a member of the care team too, she said.
Call center staff may not deliver care to patients with their hands, but they do provide crucial support and connections so that patients can access expert care when they need it, Garcia pointed out.
“Alli benefits staff by handling routine interactions, allowing our care team members to focus on complex patient needs that require more personalized attention. It allows our team to spend more time doing the tasks they are best trained to do. Alli also allows our representatives to meet the needs of more patients by reducing call times by 5-10 seconds,” she declared.
Patients benefit as well — 80% of calls are now answered in 45 seconds or less, Garcia added.
Overall, the data is showing that Alli does a good job of handling routine requests, helping Allina boost efficiency without adding to its headcount.
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