Philips is integrating US firm MedChat’s live chat and AI-driven chatbot services into its Patient Navigation Manager, helping improve call centre efficiency and speed the time to resolve patient inquiries.

With the combined offering, Dutch firm Philips now lets its customers in North America create automated communication workflows that function seamlessly alongside patient access and call centre operations. Hospitals and outpatient clinics can also digitally navigate patients from the time an order is placed to when it is scheduled and completed through follow-up.

Patient Navigation Manager automatically guides patients through their care journey using Hipaa-compliant SMS, email and voice messages. With the MedChat capabilities, patients have the ability to perform complex tasks by linking directly with live agents using MedChat’s chatbot services. Medchat’s natural language processing (NLP) reads and understands patients’ messages, while its machine-learning algorithms adapt over time to provide the most relevant information.

Its symptom checker and triage bot – now embedded within Patient Navigation Manager’s core communications technologies – evaluates 125,000 evidence-based references to diagnose patients and recommend the appropriate care setting.

“Philips continues to demonstrate our ongoing commitment and leadership in patient management and engagement with fully integrated solutions into our suite of smart connected imaging systems,” said Brent Berthy, general manager of precision diagnosis at Philips. “By combining MedChat’s technology with Philips Patient Navigation Manager, we can help healthcare enterprises deliver streamlined diagnostic workflows that meet the quadruple aim of better patient outcomes, enhanced patient and staff experiences, and lower operational costs due to the elimination of burdensome manual outreach task.”

Since its introduction a year ago, Patient Navigation Manager has experienced widespread adoption among health systems in the USA, generating early success including an 86% reduction in same-day cancellations, a 45% reduction in no-shows and a 30% increase in referral conversion efficiency. It easily scales across the enterprise, and is accessible through a mobile device or computer without the need for patients to download an app.

“Philips Patient Navigation Manager does a great job helping providers communicate with patients while improving outcomes, while MedChat helps make that Hipaa-compliant conversation two-way, real time and an enhanced experience,” said Matt Yagey, CEO at North Carolina-based MedChat. “We are excited to bring our integrated solution to Philips customers and also see an enormous need for Patient Navigation Manager among our hundreds of customers.”

The Philips-Medchat collaboration follows a similar enhancement to connect patients digitally to practitioners outside the hospital or clinic. Earlier this year, Philips teamed with OpenDoctor to integrate real-time patient self-scheduling capabilities into Patient Navigation Manager. The customisable, single-vendor offering for radiology patient management aims to reduce lost slots, improve speed of scheduling, optimise appointment preparation, and improve patient and staff satisfaction.

Patient Navigation Manager is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering.