Stanford, Qualtrics partner on agentic AI for care coordination
Agentic AI designed by Qualtrics and Stanford Health Care is intended to support care coordination to ultimately promote a better patient experience.
Experience management firm Qualtrics has teamed up with Stanford Health Care to deploy agentic AI designed to support care coordination, patient healthcare access and more culturally competent care, the organizations announced today.
The organizations built the AI agents on the Qualtrics XM Platform to help deepen the patient-provider relationship.
By addressing some of healthcare's greatest pain points -- conflicting care instructions, prior authorization delays or coordination of social determinants of health interventions -- Qualtrics and Stanford Health Care said providers will be able to focus on the connections they have with patients.
"Trust is built when patients feel truly seen, heard and cared for," said David Entwistle, President and CEO of Stanford Health Care. "By developing AI that supports our teams and aligns with the way we deliver care, we can protect the time and attention that positively fuels the provider-patient relationship, while meeting people's needs in the moment, every time."
AI agents to tackle most complex healthcare tasks
Ultimately, Qualtrics and Stanford Health Care hope to address the tasks that add the most administrative complexity -- tasks that revolve around care coordination.
Traditionally, poor health IT interoperability, fragmented healthcare teams and disconnects with third-party players like social services or healthcare payers have stymied care coordination efforts. The AI agents will integrate with medical records and be able to navigate complex landscapes that previously burdened healthcare providers.
Specifically, the Qualtrics and Stanford Health Care AI agents will be able to do the following:
- Predict patient no-shows due to transportation barriers and proactively arrange rides or telehealth services.
- Flag language discordance and connect patients with bilingual staff or language interpreters, as well as tailor patient education materials to language and culture.
- Detect prescription fill delays following discharge, begin prior authorization workflows and expedite medication delivery.
- Identify and ameliorate conflicting care instructions, ensuring patients receive cohesive and aligned education and clinical guidance across the care continuum. This will ease patient anxiety, Qualtrics and Stanford Health Care said.
- Connect patients to services that address social determinants of health, including housing, food and transportation services.
Qualtrics and Stanford Health Care said that automating and streamlining these workflows will speed up the time to all types of care for patients and their providers. Being proactive about patient needs will be essential to creating a better care experience, according to Alpa Vyas, SVP and Chief Patient Experience and Operational Performance Officer at Stanford Health Care.
"The future of the patient experience is precision -- knowing not just what a patient needs, but when and how to act on it," Vyas said in a press release. "With this solution, we can proactively resolve the issues that cause friction for patients and teams alike and do it in ways that are measurable, scalable and respectful of the human relationships at the heart of care."
Sara Heath has reported news related to patient engagement and health equity since 2015.
