AI & Automation

AI-powered growth in healthcare: early trends and learningsAI-powered growth in healthcare: early trends and learnings

Healthcare providers who adopt early and learn to harness its power will stand to gain a competitive edge.

Vivek Shukla, Contributing Editor

August 21, 2023

4 Min Read

With the recent popularity of AI, healthcare organisations are beginning to experiment with its usage towards decision-making, revenue growth, and other business requirements. Healthcare providers are on the cusp of a new era where AI can become a powerful enabler of growth. With some early adopters who are charting the path ahead, some useful learnings are emerging. Whether it is standalone tools (e.g., ChatGPT) or complex solutions that integrate with the various IT platforms, there is a lot that is possible in healthcare business and management.

AI-enabled C-Suite for growth

A C-Suite that is fully empowered with data integration for future predictions is soon going to be a reality. A predictive tool integrated with the EMR, and the ERP systems can forecast the occupancy rates, profitability, budget shortfalls, staff requirements, OT utilisation and many other KPIs with reasonable accuracy.

Once the machines learn the previous data and trends. This will enable C-Suite to take preventive actions and prioritise well in advance. Imagine the power that a management team will have if business volumes, requirements, and bottlenecks can be predicted months in advance. It is a given that a proactive, AI-enabled CEO will have an upper hand over his/her adversaries who are still in the older, reaction-based management world.

Automation in healthcare

Automation is another key aspect that can influence AI-powered growth for healthcare players. By implementing standalone or integrated automation solutions, healthcare organisations can streamline various basic workflows and reduce manual tasks, thus bringing costs down. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has been around for some time and can further be leveraged for more efficiency.

RPA can be applied for appointment scheduling, insurance pre-approvals, patient reminders and follow-ups, and a host of other things that require basic and mundane manual tasks. With automation, the speed is higher and the chances of human errors are minimised. What’s more, an automated robot program works seven days a week and 24 hours a day.

One great use case can be a chatbot or a virtual assistant that uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to provide automated and personalised interactions with patients. In fact, some large global brands are planning virtual clinics based on this model where initial diagnosis or triage can be done with no or minimal human involvement.
Imagine, an international patient gets triaged in advance for his treatment in another country through a completely automated bot. The bot reads his reports and processes his demographic data to ascertain the treatment pathway before the actual journey even begins.

It must not, however, be presumed that human involvement in healthcare will be reduced and jobs will become redundant. What may happen is that the human element will be more available for tasks that need empathy, understanding, complex decision-making, and listening, instead of repetitive mundane work.

Personalisation for patient retention

Personalisation plays a crucial role in patient experience, and subsequently, retention. Leveraging AI capabilities, healthcare providers can analyse patient medical history, preferences, and transaction data to deliver highly personalised care and messages. This personalised approach can extend beyond treatment recommendations to include preventive healthcare, cross referrals to other services, fitness plans, dietary advice, and relevant product suggestions.

Further, the messaging for all these additional suggestions and advice can be created using various AI tools and patients can be engaged through SMS, e-mails, chatbots, and more. Eventually, the conversion and compliance can be measured and patients who drop out of the loop can be retrieved using a well-designed process.

Content generation

AI tools facilitate the generation of relevant and engaging content for healthcare marketing. Automated content creation, such as blog posts, social media updates, and educational materials saves time, money and other resources while maintaining a consistent online presence.

Some suggested tools that can add value to a hospital’s marketing team are as follows.

Beautiful AI: Create presentations in seconds.
Audo.ai: Automatically removes background noise and enhances your speech using the latest advancement in audio processing and artificial intelligence.
Qissa.ai: A content writing tool like ChatGPT, however, seems to have a better quality of content.
Notion.ai: Content creation, grammar check, and translation into other languages.
Klaviyo: SMS/Newsletter creation. SMS creation keeps in mind mobile-compliant regulations as well.
Carma: AI-enabled media monitoring
Veed: Create and edit videos fast for social media.
Jasper AI: Copywriting tool that creates content automatically.
Runway: Video editing software: change the video background and delete items in videos.

To conclude, AI is here to stay. Healthcare providers who adopt early and learn to harness its power will stand to gain a competitive edge. They will excel at improving patient care, increasing retention, and optimising operational efficiency. Their teams will be able to communicate and promote the brand better using personalisation,
automation, and content generation. In addition, AI can result in overall cost reduction for healthcare.

The leaders of these organisations will be at a greater advantage as they can use predictive analysis and current data in the form of real-time dashboards. This will enable proactive and better decision-making. These are exciting times with plenty of new learnings on the cards. Only if you learn, you can grow.