In the United States, physician often tops the list of esteemed and respected professions. Such medical professionals are charged with caring for patients and improving health outcomes through evidence-based decision-making.
Along with patient care, physicians must conduct tasks needed to comply with multiple rules and regulations, complete comprehensive documentation, provide performance data and maintain their medical licensure and admitting privilege. In between these tasks and patient care, they spend hours learning about new or changing treatments and procedures and educating themselves about trends in the healthcare industry.
Many of these professionals experience physician burnout. Bureaucratic and administrative work is often cited by physicians as one of the top factors leading to burnout. Doctors work an average of 51 hours per week, with almost half their work day spent on administrative work. Only 27 percent is spent on direct clinical care.
The Impact of Physician Time Constraints on Patient Trust
These time constraints physicians encounter directly impact trust, a central component of the doctor-patient relationship. Most patients trust physicians to act in their best interest, but roughly 30 percent of patients say they lost trust in the healthcare system during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The main reasons patients report for declining trust in their doctor consist of not listening enough, not providing enough information, not making eye contact and seeming too financially motivated. The biggest patient complaint is that their physician spends too little time with them in their appointments. Long wait times certainly do not quell that frustration.
What happens when a patient loses trust in you and other healthcare professionals? Patients who don’t trust their physician are less likely to get annual preventive exams or openly talk about their symptoms. They consistently demonstrate less satisfaction with treatment and are less likely to adhere to public health recommendations.
Increased patient trust, however, often results in improved outcomes. Patients who have higher trust in their doctors are more likely to disclose personal information, feel less anxious about their treatment, utilize more preventive healthcare and adhere to their medications. There are even studies that show a close relationship between patient trust and strong surgical outcomes.
How Conversational AI Is Transforming Patient Care
Although conversational AI technology can never replace physicians, it provides a lot of value to them by enabling patients to handle non-clinical tasks, such as answering commonly asked questions, automating clinical outreach, scheduling appointments and making payments. That gives doctors more time for direct patient care, a win-win for the physician-patient relationship.
What exactly is conversational AI? It communicates with users through natural language user interfaces involving images, text and voice and automates more natural, human-like interactions.
By combining advanced automation, AI, and natural language processing (NLP) to enable comprehension of and response to human language, voice-enabled conversational AI can be used by healthcare providers to respond to common patient questions, streamline some administrative tasks, and more. It achieves this by generating clear answers that mimic human interaction and asking follow-up questions if necessary.
Perks of conversational AI for patients and healthcare providers include:
24/7 Availability
Conversational AI enables patients to procure quick and accurate information without having to speak to someone in their provider’s office. These tools provide 24/7 availability, meeting patients’ preferences for convenience. That means happy patients every single call, every single time.
Higher Patient Engagement
Conversational AI provides a human-like interaction for patients while giving them timely information specific to their healthcare. This personalized communication engages patients by being able to provide meaningful guidance and information and ensures that a broader patient demographic receives the care they need.
Reduced Hospital Readmissions
Timely follow-up through healthcare automation can be conducted to help patients schedule post-discharge care with their primary care physician or ensure they understand how to use new durable medical equipment such as a CPAP. It can be scaled to direct patients to the right level of care to close gaps in care, whether through an in-office appointment or an at-home screening.
Streamlined Medication Management
Prescription medications offer an effective method for treatment, but many patients do not take their prescriptions as direction – even those with chronic illnesses. By using conversational AI to remind patients to take their medicine, alert them when a refill is needed or recommend over-the-counter medications based on their profile, healthcare organizations can alleviate medication non-adherence and improve outcomes.
Multilingual Support
By providing multilingual support through conversational AI, physician practices can overcome language barriers and increase access to more patients. They can also more easily promote patient engagement and gain a competitive edge over other healthcare organizations.
Can Technology Enhance Human Connection?
As we mentioned in a recent blog, conversational AI and other types of artificial intelligence utilized in healthcare are not designed to replace humans. They are meant to augment tasks, especially repetitive, time-consuming administrative ones to preserve resources for higher-value interactions.
Although conversational AI is a very efficient tool for providers and patients, it is not intended to be used to build personal relationships between the two parties. It is a tool to expand the reach of an understaffed healthcare workforce. Only human emotions coupled with critical thinking allow for complex decision-making while excelling in clear and empathetic communication with patients.
The Future of Conversational AI in Doctor-Patient Relationships
The fact that physicians are responsible for multiple administrative tasks which limit the amount of time they can spend with patients certainly will not change anytime soon. Utilizing conversational AI, though, will continue to reduce that administrative burden and streamline operational efficiency, allowing doctors to focus more on providing quality patient care, thereby improving clinical outcomes. Examples include:
Answering Common Patient Questions
A voice-enabled conversational AI solution can answer frequently asked patient questions about symptoms, treatments, medications, preventive measures or preparations for an upcoming appointment or procedure. Patients receive an immediate answer without having to schedule an in-office visit, and medical group staff can focus on more high-touch tasks.
Handling Appointment Scheduling and Reminders
Patient no-shows and cancellations are costly for healthcare organizations, but they can be mitigated through self-scheduling and automated appointment reminders. Through voice-enabled conversational AI, patients can conveniently schedule or reschedule an appointment with their preferred provider at the location closest to them.
Delivering Patient Education
Delivering customized messages that contain relevant patient education, health information and navigation support empowers patients to make informed healthcare decisions. Conversational AI provides a more human-like interaction for patients while giving them information specific to their healthcare and adjusting the information based on health literacy levels.
Adopting Providertech’s Conversational AI for Enhanced Doctor-Patient Relationships
Providertech.ai automatically answers incoming calls around the clock using advanced conversational AI, scheduling and updating appointments and providing immediate responses to patients’ commonly asked questions. Listen to a sample recording today to learn more!
