The complexities of budgeting for a large health system pose vexing challenges for CIOs as they try to find new ways to grow and maintain their patient populations. Healthcare CIOs must balance future-focused digital transformation investments with current operational efficiency initiatives, all while improving the patient experience and striving to optimize the way consumers communicate with their institutions. Whether a person calls on the phone to access care, uses a web chat, or logs onto a portal, meeting patients where they are is imperative, no matter their channel preference.
As health systems consider investing in tech to improve operations AND health outcomes, they do so with financial pressures coming from all angles. An American Hospital Association report provides an overview of the challenging financial landscape hospitals face. Last year, according to the report, health systems sustained substantial expenses: high labor costs, drugs and supplies, ongoing workforce challenges, and growing administrative burdens. Reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid have not kept pace with these mounting expenditures, due in part to growing inflation.
A digital health technology report, spearheaded by Panda Health, found that 67% of leaders anticipate increases in their health tech budget. Hospitals must carefully cut through the noise, navigate a crowded digital health vendor market, and vet what companies offer. AI is on the tip of every tongue — but how can CIOs harness it wisely to facilitate human-centered care and meet consumer expectations? The wrong decisions could undercut operational efficiency, compound workforce challenges, disrupt financial stability, AND compromise patient care. That’s why many healthcare decision-makers are focusing their efforts on practical, tangible improvements to produce a direct impact on their organizations’ bottom line and workflow optimization, according to a recent Forbes article by David Chou.
Health systems report that while the industry has spent billions on digital transformation tools to improve communication at the healthcare ‘front door,’ a frustratingly low percentage of their patient populations are taking advantage of portals, chatbots, mobile apps, etc. According to a recent report, 72% of patients and caregivers still pick up the phone first when they want fast customer service and are looking to make appointments or ask questions. Addressing the preferences of the widest population of healthcare consumers makes good business sense, while neglecting to modernize the voice channel causes daily revenue leakage.
When it comes to managing inbound phone calls, underperformance has devastating cost implications because the process happens millions of times each year across a health system’s network of care. Tools and technologies such as the Parlance IVA (intelligent virtual assistant) are innovations that autonomously assist callers, enhancing the patient experience and easing the burdens of countless overworked agents. Conversational AI enables consumers to easily navigate their hospital or clinic’s environment, manage their appointments, and get answers to common questions — all by speaking naturally.
For a large health system, ensuring prompt answers to phone calls and easy access to information/support is a complex process — and very few organizations do it well. Inbound calls often involve outdated technology and long hold times that burden busy call center agents and frustrate patients. Ensuring a seamless caller experience is critical to keeping patients and their loved ones engaged. However, healthcare consumer expectations often vary depending on a person’s age.
While Millennials and Gen Z’ers are tech-savvy, more than capable of using health portals, they won’t waste time if they know that the issue is too complex to be solved quickly online. They still choose the phone for solving complicated problems. Gen X’ers are also comfortable with technology, but given busy work schedules and active children, they also toggle between channels. Gen X has the burden of not only managing their own health care, but that of their children, and even aging parents. While appointments may be made on a portal, Gen X’ers often turn to the ease of phone access in order to manage healthcare on the go. On the furthest end of the spectrum are the Baby Boomers, who can be intimidated by digital channels. 71% of Boomers prefer to initiate healthcare interactions over the phone.
Patient-centered access to care is top-of-mind for CIOs entering 2025. CHIME 24 Fall Forum emphasized a strong drive to make sure healthcare tech serves actual patient needs, not just innovation for its own sake. Tech must ease the challenge of navigating a large health system, not further complicate it.
Navigating healthcare portals is extremely difficult for the 30 million Americans that identify as having limited English proficiency and for the 21% of Americans that are illiterate. Aging also brings challenges to online access, as seen in older individuals with hand disabilities and vision loss who struggle to use web pages. Yet another obstacle is poverty, as over 40% of the 38 million adults with low incomes don’t own a computer, per the Pew Research Center. Similarly, 24 million American households lack an internet connection. Systems that have prioritized online methods of access, have ostracized certain segments of their patient populations.
When health systems let the voice channel become outdated and inefficient, it creates significant hurdles for a large portion of their patient base and contributes to a vicious cycle of poor health outcomes. In a time when 88% of healthcare appointments are still scheduled by phone, improving health equity means improving the voice channel. The most effective way to do this is with conversational AI.
Parlance, a leader in the IT space, has helped many of the largest health systems in the country balance technology investments with patient expectations by delivering virtual assistants in the voice channel, to hospital switchboard and RCM contact center operations. More than a thousand hospitals and clinics use Parlance to digitize the voice channel — providing better navigation for healthcare consumers, autonomously verifying patient identities, managing appointments, answering FAQs, and more.
People of every age and ability deserve easy access to care. As health systems seek to improve the patient journey through new technology investments, they can’t ignore the channel preferences and needs of their patient populations. Modernizing the phone is vital for healthcare organizations to meet consumer expectations and promote health equity and easy access to care.
Photo: Peter Dazeley, Getty Images