Convergencia Research, Consultoría especializada en Latinoamérica y Caribe
Thursday, May 05, 2022

Omnichannel in health processes: AI and communications via WhatsApp gain weight

In an online panel organized by Vonage, different disruptive technologies were analyzed to digitize care channels and improve the patient experience. According to 62% of the academic studies related to care, one of the main problems in the health sector is the lack of information as a barrier to access to care.

The online event organized by Vonage - Credit: Vonage
The online event organized by Vonage - Credit: Vonage

Among the success stories presented during the event, Ricardo Rodríguez, coordinator of the Patient Program at the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, highlighted that the user base of the loyalty group increased by 121% between 2020 and 2021 -from 2,627 to 5,815- thanks to the implemented omnichannel strategy. "At the end of 2019 we began to create spaces to reach customers with a greater use of digital media, which was not our focus," he recalled.

WhatsApp became the main service channel: even 55% of the patients registered in 2021 -approximately 3,000- entered the program from this platform. 

Katixa Mellado Kuzmanic, deputy manager of Channels and Clients at the UC-Christus Health Network in Chile, raised the two problems they sought to address with the transformation of channels: one of productivity, due to appointments with a high rate of "no show" of patients; and limitations to handle the flow of calls. In the first case, the health center lost about 20% of the medical offer due to the absence of patients. “We had an inability to absorb the flow of calls on Monday and Tuesday for different scheduling services, reaching levels below 80% service on Monday and Tuesday. The rest of the days we had idle capacity,” he explained. 

UC-Christus Health Network worked hand in hand with Elipse in the channel transformation program. Both problems were addressed with a new virtual assistant, “Emma”. The work took six months, between September 2020 and March 2021: “it was a long process because it involved implementation with AI and knowledge of the network. Furthermore, a change in the structure of our contact center”. 

A unified evolutionary strategy was deployed for contact with patients. First, Emma was used for appointment confirmation via WA. The SMS contact was added to confirm the shift on the same day. Currently only 5-10% of dates are contacted by a human and Emma receives 25% of the call flow.

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