Since the inception of computers, we have been programmed that interacting with technology involved pressing buttons.
In order for me to communicate with you via any kind of electronic communication media required typing on either alphabetical or numerical keys to relay that message.
Then came the internet and we were programmed how to search. We were programmed that if we typed a certain combination of words that the search engine would provide results based on our keyword criteria. If we didn’t like the results, then we were programmed to enter another search criteria until we filtered down the results we desired.
Let’s face it, our computers have programmed us how to interact with them. This is all a function of how a computer program catalogs and stores data. Accessing that data is structured in the way that the computer understands it and as humans we have had to adapt to those rules. This is part of the rub when new technology changes our workflow. We programmed ourselves to interact with a program in a certain way, then the program is updated and we have to reprogram ourselves to adapted to the updates.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing how we interact with technology. Many believed that AI was going to be a back-end function that made sourcing and structuring the data more efficient. Now what we are learning is that AI changes the actual user interface (UI).
According to Kaveh Safavi, M.D., J.D., Senior Managing Director, Health Industry Accenture, “one of the trends we are beginning to see now is the introduction of voice as the way to interact with technology rather than typing and in healthcare that is particularly important because in many cases you are dealing with an older person who either can’t see or might have arthritis, so working on a smart phone might be a challenge. People have actually observed globally that even young people also prefer speaking their texts as opposed to writing their texts, so the user experience is also intelligent.”
An Accenture report highlights 3 important statistics about AI:
- 84% of healthcare executives believe that AI will revolutionize the way they will gain information from and interact with customers
- 81% of healthcare executives say it is extremely or very important to offer their products/services through centralized platforms/assistants or messaging bots
- 72% of health organizations are already using intelligent virtual assistants to create better customer interactions
At Care Experience, we have seen a trend to adopt AI to create efficiencies for patients and caregivers.
Our CRMDTM platform, powered by IBM Watson, has the ability to analyze unstructured data (such as patient comments, provider notes, inbound inquiries, etc) to drive insights and direction from data points that were historically considered ad hoc and time-consuming.
As unstructured healthcare data explodes, a key strategy for success lies in next generation analytics that can interpret all this data to drive true insights.