Duke Health, ranked in the top 3 heathcare system by US News & World report, was facing overwhelming call volumes and staffing challenges starting in the pandemic. They partnered with Avaamo to implement a multi-channel AI solution. This HIPAA-compliant system automated common patient requests like appointment management and test results, while also streamlining internal processes such as onboarding and HR inquiries. By integrating with existing healthcare applications and internal systems, Avaamo’s virtual health assistants now handle over 150,000 queries monthly, significantly improving efficiency for both patients and staff in this large healthcare organization serving 250,000+ patients with 5 million annual outpatient visits.
At a glance
90%
Deflections of the Appointment Confirmation and Get Test Results interactions
50+
Steady expansion from 3 initial clinics to 51 in 3 months
64%
Faster patient experience. Avaamo = 153 sec vs live agent = 244 sec.
The Challenge
With call centers and access specialists operating at over capacity due to recurring COVID-19 surges as well as industry-wide challenge of keeping up with hiring needs, the Duke Health System sought a way to deflect calls for common patient requests such as confirming, canceling, and rescheduling appointments, resetting MyChart password, getting test results and scheduling a vaccine appointment.
At the same time, Duke Health’s internal staff were looking for ways to more efficiently manage the influx of questions around onboarding, transfers, payroll and benefits, new manager training, and streamline recruiting. In addition to the patient-facing solution, Duke Health also wanted to deliver additional capacity and faster resolutions with reduced wait times to patients and hospital staff for these wide ranges of inquiries.
The Solution
Avaamo provided a multi-channel digital front door that offloads common requests for patients and staff at Duke Health Systems – which is critical for greater scalability at an innovative organization with 25,000 staff handling 5 million outpatient visits per year for their 250,000+ patients
Available via inbound phone and web, these HIPAA-compliant virtual health assistants deliver responsive, personalized patient care at scale through seamless backend integrations with major healthcare and call center applications. Avaamo also integrates with Duke’s internal Sharepoint and external website, to accelerate the automation of common staff queries like employee onboarding, payroll and benefits, manager support, and recruiting. As a result, the simple natural language interface supports 30+ skills and answers over 150,000 queries on a monthly basis.
The more interactions we can have with our patients the better. Engaging with a patient across the continuum is now possible with Conversational AI.
Neil D. Ray, MD, MMCi
Chief Innovation & Technology Officer
Duke Health Physician Group, Duke Health