Artificial intelligence isn’t a new concept. In the healthcare industry alone, AI has been used to some degree since the 1970s. It was first implemented to help identify blood infection treatments and showed promising results. This led to further curiosity about what it could do for healthcare professionals. Today, AI is commonly used in several aspects of care, especially regarding radiology, screening tests, psychiatry, disease diagnosis, predictive and preventative care, and more. However, one lesser-known way AI tools impact the healthcare industry is through enhanced communication. AI is enhancing healthcare communication and reshaping how medical professionals and patients interact. Here, we’ll go over everything you need to know about using AI for transformative collaboration.
Common Challenges in Medical Communication
While Electronic Health records have reduced the incidence of medical errors by improving the accuracy and clarity of medical records, they do not address the communication challenges today’s healthcare organizations still face. Communication channels are often fragmented, leaving gaps in patient care, follow-up, and department collaboration. Moreover, patient engagement is increasingly tricky without good communication, resulting in disruptive care plans or gaps in their treatment.
All in all, effective communication is paramount to enhance patient outcomes, revenue growth, and overall operational efficiency. Thanks to advancements in technology, AI has the potential to bridge these gaps and create a better experience for both healthcare providers and the patients they care for.
How AI Healthcare Communication is Improving Patient Care
Communication within a healthcare organization is becoming increasingly complex. With increased patient volume and a declining rate of medical professionals, many physicians and nurses are overwhelmed with tasks, applications, and health information. Still, communication is the key to a strong healthcare ecosystem. Luckily, there are several ways that patients and care teams (physicians, nurses, surgeons, lab technicians, administrative staff, etc.) can leverage the use of AI in healthcare communication. Some of the most impactful ways to apply AI technology in this industry include the following:
• Scheduling and Follow-Ups
AI has the potential to significantly improve scheduling and follow-up processes in healthcare, two areas that often experience delays or miscommunication. By automating appointment reminders, confirmations, and rescheduling tasks, AI systems can help increase the likelihood that patients remain engaged in their treatment plans. Some AI-driven platforms can also analyze patient data to identify those requiring follow-up care, sending reminders or alerts to patients and healthcare providers.
• Real-Time Communication and Support
Several doctors and nurses have admitted feeling burnt out due to increased patient messages. While AI shouldn’t replace doctors and act as chatbots for communication about all medical information, it can be helpful if adequately trained.
For example, some AI chatbots use machine learning based on predetermined information (i.e., medical content that’s been scientifically reviewed). In these situations, AI can answer medical questions to help healthcare professionals and patients. You may also be able to ask a specific question about treatment options or best practices, to which AI can provide recommendations, and the ideal course of treatment based on the data you provide.
For example, Skyscape’s Buzz Lightning™ extends contextual AI tools that accelerate care decision making by providing healthcare professionals real-time access to relevant, evidence-based, clinical information. They also provide generative AI which simplifies laborious and repetitive tasks, in a HIPAA compliant framework, reducing the administrative workload of busy healthcare professionals.
• Alleviate the Cognitive Burden of Medical Professionals
• AI can also help alleviate some of the cognitive burden many medical professionals feel. This is especially true regarding patient communication. While you may not want to rely 100% on it to “talk” to your patients, leveraging AI as a collaborative tool can greatly reduce the administrative burden often involved with exam notes, updates, and patient inquiries.
• One study from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine found that, while AI-generated replies didn’t necessarily reduce the response time, they have helped significantly relieve the cognitive burden often associated with writing personalized notes or emails.
• This study on quality enhancement examines the communication between patients and doctors, proposing that incorporating generative AI into digital healthcare exchanges could significantly enhance communication quality, efficiency, and engagement. Furthermore, by easing the workload of physicians, nurses, and healthcare professionals, the aim is for generative AI to help mitigate burnout, enabling them to concentrate on the more intricate aspects of patient care.
• Generative AI for Efficient Workflows
One of the most promising applications of AI in healthcare communication is the ability to streamline workflows. Generative AI, which can create text-based content such as reports or responses, is helping reduce the time medical professionals spend on administrative tasks.
• Improved Compassion, Empathy, and Personalization
In conjunction with the above, AI is helping doctors write more empathetic and compassionate messages. When used strategically to create a draft to respond to emails or patient messages in a portal, AI can help write an empathetic response rather than a one to two-sentence message. This pivot in public health communication increases patient satisfaction and can help decrease the gaps in treatment caused by confusion or a lack of clarity. Still, conversational AI and machine learning should not replace communication from a medical professional and always need to be fact-checked and thoroughly reviewed.
• Bridging Language and Cultural Barriers
AI-powered language translation also helps doctors improve multilingual communication. This can help bridge a huge gap when there are language barriers regarding symptoms, care plans, and long-term treatment. Although having a family member there for translation may also help, sometimes a loved one will “sugarcoat” news, resulting in misinformation or a lack of clarity about the situation. AI-driven communication in other situations can help care givers adjust how they word things based on someone’s cultural background, thus improving patient trust and overall satisfaction.
• Collaborative Threads for Patient’s Health Updates
By creating collaborative threads within a secure digital platform, healthcare providers can seamlessly communicate in real-time about a patient’s condition, treatment plan, and any changes in their health status. These threads allow for instant updates from doctors, nurses, lab technicians, caregivers and other professionals, ensuring that everyone involved in a patient’s care is on the same page. With AI, these threads can be automatically populated with relevant patient data, reducing the need for manual input and ensuring that critical information is shared promptly.
• Monitoring Health Conditions
Some forms of AI can also be used to help monitor, and sometimes alert care teams to changes patient’s health status, or help detect adverse events, before they become severe while they’re at home. Sensors and other medical tools can be used by a patient at home and recorded in the portal. From here, AI tools can review it and send automated alerts to doctors, nurses or caregivers if an issue is detected. Again, this is still something that should complement regular patient care instead of replacing it. Still, it’s an innovative advancement that could allow for early detection of issues between doctors and home health care practitioners.
• AI-Powered Automation Reduces Operational Costs
Finally, AI has the potential to reduce overhead costs significantly. The above benefits highlight how AI-powered automation is transforming healthcare by reducing the time and effort spent on routine, repetitive tasks, which in turn helps cut down on operational costs.
In a field where efficiency is critical, automating administrative processes such as billing, data entry, and scheduling allows healthcare professionals to focus on more complex patient care. Plus, the ability of AI to identify inefficiencies in workflows allows for strategic changes that result in a stronger allocation of resources and higher performance of medical professionals in all industries.
How to Choose the Right Healthcare Communication Platform
AI is a great tool for improving efficiency and boosting patient satisfaction, but there are still some pitfalls to be aware of. Remember, patient communication should not be 100% replaced by chatbots, as doing so could potentially lead to adverse patient health outcomes. Instead, it should be viewed as a supplemental tool.
Despite AI’s benefits, it’s not the only feature you should look for in a communication platform. It’s important to find something that offers an all-in-one solution for all of your collaborative needs.
Buzz is a HIPAA-secure platform that simplifies real-time on-the-go communications between all stakeholders in an organization’s healthcare ecosystem (administrators, operations, billing, payors, providers and patients). It supports commonly used communication modalities, including texts, dictation, private calls, audio, images, reports, and video sharing. By consolidating these features into a single platform, Buzz eliminates the need for multiple communication tools, reducing confusion and burnout and enabling healthcare teams to focus on delivering exceptional patient care.
Learn more about Buzz features or contact us to see why Buzz is the most feature rich, easiest to adopt and easy on your budget with pricing equal to a cup of coffee!
