Pennsylvania-based integrated health system WellSpan Health is piloting a conversational AI-powered service tailored to interact with patients, aiming to improve healthcare access, equity, and outcomes. The GenAI agent is engaging with Spanish-speaking and English-speaking patients to improve access to cancer screenings.
York, Pa.-based WellSpan, which has eight hospitals, has partnered with Hippocratic AI, which developed the patient-facing, large language model (LLM) designed for healthcare. Hippocratic AI’s GenAI healthcare agent contacts patients by telephone.
These calls allow WellSpan to close care gaps with many of its multi-lingual and underserved populations by scaling resources that have not existed in the past. One of the goals of efforts such as this is to address the severe healthcare workforce shortage impacting health systems across the country.
Hippocratic AI says its GenAI agents comprehensively and empathetically engage patients in conversation, asking and answering questions relating to their colorectal health, providing a complete transcript of the conversation to WellSpan clinicians for review, and in some cases live transfer to or later follow-up by a human clinician. Initial calls in the pilot will also be monitored by a human clinician to ensure patient safety.
The health system is also using another Hippocratic AI agent with low-risk patients undergoing scheduled colonoscopy preparation, and follow-up to their procedure.
WellSpan has identified thousands of patients eligible for colorectal cancer screenings who have not engaged with screenings to date. It says this tool increases access for those who may have language barriers or difficulty accessing the system’s patient portal, MyWellSpan. Plans are in development to launch additional languages spoken in other communities the health system serves, including Haitian Creole and Nepali.
Other GenAI agents in development will support workflows such as chronic care management, post-discharge follow-up for specific conditions such as congestive heart failure and kidney disease, wellness and social determinants of health surveys, health risk assessments, and pre-operative patient instructions.
“At WellSpan, we’re re-imaging healthcare by tapping into innovation that supports our clinical teams, and we’re excited to introduce this cutting-edge technology for our patients in ways that also allow us to address health disparities,” said Kasey Paulus, senior vice president and chief nursing executive of WellSpan Health, in a statement. “We’re committed to utilizing AI that’s designed to ensure patient safety continues to be our top priority and our collaboration in quality assurance with Hippocratic AI only strengthens that approach.”
