Operations & Logistics
6 min read

Transforming Healthcare Contact Centers with Salesforce and Conversational AI
Ziv Gidron Head of Content, Hyro
Transforming Healthcare Contact Centers with Salesforce and Conversational AI
Ten million. 
The World Health Organization forecasts a shortage of ten million healthcare workers worldwide by 2030. For perspective, that’s 15% of the total tally of the 65 million professionals who make up the global healthcare workforce today.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Nowhere will this shockwave be more pronounced than in healthcare call centers, perhaps the most churn-prone branch of any healthcare organization, with best-case estimates placing annual call center agent turnover at over 25% annually.
While generative AI may serve as a deus ex machina that could, according to some estimates, unlock a trillion dollars in unrealized healthcare potential, attitudes toward AI are sharply divided. 51% of Americans are optimistic about AI’s potential to enhance healthcare, while another 52% express concerns, particularly around transparency, trust, and understanding of its application.
With these factors in mind and just a little under a week after Hyro announced its partnership with Salesforce, we gathered Salesforce’s Industry Advisor, Health Strategy, Dr. Sindhu Pandit, Intermountain Health’s Director of Digital Services and CRM, Lara Richardson, and Hyro’s very own VP Product, Uri Pintov for a critical live webinar.
Our panelists dissected these issues at length and offered a proven blueprint for an ROI-driving contact center tech stack fueled by Hyro and Salesforce’s combined solutions.

Here’s Dr. Pandit on current patient and physician sentiment towards AI:

A Recipe for Turning Contact Centers into Value Generators

Lara Richardson, Intermountain Health’s Director of Digital Services and CRM, provided a glimpse into her health system’s thought process when redesigning their call center tech stack for maximum efficiency. In order to assemble the most effective tools for the mission, Intermountain first had to clearly define the long-stemming issues they were hoping to resolve:
  1. Overly Complicated Patient Experiences
For Intermountain’s patients, navigating through an increasingly complex healthcare ecosystem was becoming a barrier to access. When patients inevitably reached out to Intermountain’s contact center to seek the answers they were looking for, they were met with frustratingly long hold times and clunky IVR menus.
  1. Inefficient Agent Call Handling due to Disparate Technology Solutions
Call center agents were dealing with disparate technology solutions and siloed information, or as Richardson aptly put it: “swivel-chairing between different tools and technologies.” Rather than focusing on patient requests, agents struggled to find their way through a maze of unconsolidated systems.
Now that they had these core plainly laid out in front of them, Intermountain developed a strategy to resolve them, diligently selecting and vetting technology solutions that would a. best serve their strategy and b. could connect and communicate with each other. 

Watch Lara Richardson diving into the reasoning behind the specific tech stack Intermountain built:

Intermountain’s Blueprint to Building a Call Center Tech Stack

Intermountain implemented Hyro’s AI Call Center Assistant to enable patients to articulate their needs freely without conforming to IVR structures through its robust natural language understanding engine. By speaking to Hyro’s assistant, patients are now able to either resolve their issues end-to-end with zero agent involvement or be accurately routed to the correct point of care. Hyro’s AI Web Assistant was deployed across all Intermountain digital channels (websites, mobile apps, and SMS) to deflect inbound patient calls and solve patient queries digitally.
Hyro’s Adaptive Communications Platform serves as the connective tissue between these omnichannel AI assistants, Salesforce and Intermountain’s telephony system (Genesys), with all actions performed by patients automatically updated within the health system’s Epic EMR. A single cohesive stream of patient journey analytics constantly flows through and to each of these solutions.
Through Salesforce, agents have a 360° single pane of glass view of patient needs and can access relevant knowledge base articles to answer patient questions easily and quickly. These millions of patient interactions are aggregated into trends and actionable insights that assist Intermountain’s team in their decision-making and service-optimization efforts.

Here’s a snapshot of Intermountain Health’s contact center tech stack:

Intermountain'S Health'S Call Center Tech Stack

Intermountain Health’s ROI Deploying Hyro x Salesforce to their Contact Center

Intermountain’s blueprint is unquestionably innovative and thoughtfully crafted, but is it effective?

“We were able to have 91% of our calls successfully routed. For anyone who's interacted with IVR, most times, you either bounce around, call again, or start over completely, and that's really frustrating for patients. It's great to have our patients able to actually talk naturally and say precisely what they're looking to accomplish, and nine times out of ten; we're able to get them to the right point of care on that first shot.”

Lara Richardson, Director of Digital Services and CRM, Intermountain Health
Richardson provided hard numbers demonstrating the incredible ROI this Salesforce x Hyro approach has garnered for her health system:

Improved Call Routing: Achieving a 91% success rate in routing calls accurately, allowing patients to articulate their needs naturally and receive prompt assistance without the frustration of getting bounced around.

 

Efficient Hyro Web Assistant Support: Attaining a 79% completion rate for Hyro Web Assistant queries, enabling patients to resolve issues or gather information 24/7.

 

Reduced Call Abandonment Rate: Intermountain’s call abandonment rate was slashed by 64%, with call answer rates increasing by 27%. 

Watch Lara Richardson detail the ROI Intermountain achieved through its Hyro x Salesforce-fueled call center tech stack: 

Salesforce's Role and Approach to Healthcare and Their Decision to Partner with Hyro

Dr. Pandit explained Salesforce’s philosophy and strategy in healthcare. She advocated for stronger and healthier relationships between patients, providers, and AI that are anchored on trust. Pandit discussed how this very same philosophy led Salesforce to partner with Hyro:
Focus on Relationships: The Salesforce ethos is that relationships are at the core of healthcare. Leveraging technology to elevate and personalize these deeply human connections while harnessing data and AI to improve them is a primary focus for the company as it continues to expand its healthcare footprint.
Data to Action: Your data is only worthwhile if it can be turned into actionable insights that optimize business fluidity and efficiency. Redesigning work environments to incorporate automation for repetitive tasks allows individuals to focus on complex issues, enhancing job satisfaction and efficiency.
Trust and Responsibility: Addressing the trust gap in AI deployment is critical. Privacy concerns, bias, transparency, and responsible use of AI and machine learning technologies are paramount for successful integration into operational models.
Hyro Partnership: Salesforce’s decision to partner with Hyro can be boiled down to a single word: trust. The trust Hyro has earned from the leading health systems in the US, as well as the AI solution for healthcare Hyro has built and has proven to be HIPAA-compliant and trustworthy.

“When you think about selecting a partner, you have to think about your own values. How do you want to show up in this space, and who do you trust to have next to your name as you wade into these waters? And that this a critical component in the foundation of our Hyro partnership.”

Dr. Sindhu Pandit, Industry Advisor, Health Strategy, Salesforce

 Dr. Sindhu Pandit on why Salesforce chose to partner with Hyro:

Want to see the Hyro x Salesforce technology duo in action? Check out this live demo Hyro’s VP Prouct, Uri Pintov, presented during the webinar:

Want more? Watch the complete recording of the webinar.

 

Want to dive even deeper? Binge through all recordings of past Hyro webinars. Happy watching. 🍿

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About the author
Ziv Gidron Head of Content, Hyro

Ziv is Hyro’s Head of Content, a conversational AI expert, and a passionate storyteller devoted to delivering his audiences with insights that matter when they matter most. When he’s not obsessively consuming or creating content on digital health and AI, you can find him rocking out to Fleetwood Mac with his four-year-old son.

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