For as much as healthcare providers have been under the gun throughout the pandemic, the initial release of the COVID-19 vaccine was expected to be anything but a relief. After all, much of the public was eager to get the vaccine, to put it mildly, so as the release came near providers expected their phones to be ringing off the hook.
So with six community hospitals spread across the Greater Houston area, Houston Methodist enlisted AI to help them manage the flood of calls when it finally came.
"We needed a cost-effective solution that could not only manage the flood of vaccine-related phone calls without impacting our usual operations, but most importantly, ensure every patient is set on a positive path," Roberta Schwartz, executive vice president and chief innovation officer at Houston Methodist, recently told HealthcareIT News.
Specifically, the system tapped the Syllable Voice Assistant, conversational AI that answers every call received by a hospital and offers patients automated workflows and self-service options whenever possible, to help them address three particular needs.
"First, we would be able to automatically direct eligible patients to schedule a vaccination appointment through a self-service scheduling option," Schwartz said. "Second, it could automate answers to questions we knew we would receive at a high frequency, such as inquiries related to vaccine eligibility and safety. Finally, it could dynamically scale to accommodate fluctuations in call volume and answer every call without impacting our usual operations.”
Syllable also helped the healthcare provider organization standardize its approach.
"We placed the conversational AI not only in our vaccine hotline, but also in all hospital operator or other important patient-facing lines," Schwartz noted. "Whether that's vaccine eligibility or self-service Q&A, we were consistent in our patient-facing telephone lines.”
The Syllable technology increased Houston Methodist's capacity to answer incoming calls without hiring additional staff.
"We were able to ensure every single call was answered, 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Schwartz noted. "In the first month of vaccine distribution, the voice assistant answered about 9,000 calls on a typical weekday and up to 3,500 calls an hour at peak times. 91% of calls received by our COVID-19 vaccine hotline were resolved by Syllable's automated and self-service workflows.
"We also saw excellent scheduling conversion," she continued. "In the first month of deployment, 75% of patients checked their vaccine eligibility and were able to schedule a vaccine appointment, if eligible. We were quickly able to ramp up vaccine delivery, with 4,000 vaccinations delivered per day across the Houston Methodist health system in the first month."
Finally, she added, Houston Methodist ranked No. 1 in the state of Texas in vaccine delivery, providing more vaccines than any other health system in the state of Texas.
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