AI call centre agent reduces DNAs and improves patient satisfaction scores

NEWS  - eHealthNews editor Rebecca McBeth

An artificial intelligence (AI) call centre agent has reduced missed appointments to zero at one GP clinic, while cutting DNA rates by an average of 3 percent across three practices at New Zealand largest primary healthcare provider. 

Tāmaki Health, which operates 52 clinics nationwide and serves over 360,000 enrolled patients, has deployed the AI agent to handle appointment bookings and repeat prescription requests as part of broader AI initiatives across its network. 

Chief executive Lloyd McCann spoke at a recent HiNZ event – from IT to Digital and AI in Health – in Auckland where he told the audience the agent now successfully books about 40 percent of appointments at participating clinics. 

This means patients are not waiting in phone queues for human operators and Net Promoter Scores have improved by 10 to 12 points across the three clinics using the technology to date. 

McCann told the event that most patients still ring either their practice or centralised call centre to try and book an appointment and the second highest volume of inbound calls is for those people wanting to manage or arrange for a repeat prescription. 

The AI agent handles these high-volume, routine calls, freeing human staff for more complex tasks including outbound calls for smoking cessation programmes and cardiovascular disease screening. 

One practice, which already had a low DNA rate of two percent, saw missed appointments drop to zero after implementing the AI reminder system, which calls patients on the day of their appointments. Tāmaki Health is now working on a second language option after feedback and requests from patients. 

McCann said the call centre initiative is one of three major AI programmes at the organisation which has also piloted an AI patient summary system and rolled out AI scribes across its network. 

The patient summary system was developed and piloted with Deloitte and interrogates Tamaki Health's single MedTech Evolution database to provide a summary of key patient information, with a chatbot to answer additional queries about patient records. 

"This had a huge impact on our clinicians lives by surfacing relevant information and useful data at the touch of a button,” he said.  

“It was very well integrated into the clinician's workflow and it is something we are now looking at rolling out at a production level for our clinicians across the network.” 

Tamaki Health's AI scribe programme has also achieved 91-92 percent adoption by clinicians using Heidi Health. 

This has delivered both time savings and productivity improvements, as well as reduced cognitive load and less fatigue at the end of workdays, he said. 

Future plans include expanding the AI call centre agent to handle outbound calls for preventive care programmes and potentially managing more complex inbound calls.  

"The focus for the organisation going forward is to be very thoughtful and deliberate about where we are applying these algorithms so that they solve real world problems for our clinicians and for our patients,” said McCann. 

Image: Tāmaki Health chief executive Lloyd McCann speaking at - Srom IT to Digital and AI in Health

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