Using AI to provide patients with answers fast | HCLTech

Using AI to provide patients with answers fast

To support its study and eliminate participants’ need to tap into potentially unreliable sources such as “Dr. Google,” this non-profit academic medical center sought modern tools that could deliver instantaneous, fact-based answers.
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4 min read
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The Business Challenge

As a non-profit academic medical center, the client is proud to be ranked among the top hospitals in the country. Building on its century-long history of providing exceptional patient care and education backed by proprietary research, the client embarked on an ambitious new study.

4 years

Study duration

Patient care

Business vertical

North America

Geography

Central to the study is empowering patients with the accurate, unbiased and medically sound information they need — when they need it — with an interactive chatbot. To fulfill the requirements of the study, the solution needed to assist both study participants as well as the medical professionals who care for them.

On the one hand, participants must be able to get answers to their most pressing questions quickly and easily, particularly outside of regular office hours, so that they don’t turn to unprofessional and potentially erroneous advice from search engines like Google.

On the other hand, the solution also had to empower medical professionals to spend less time answering emails and more time focused on meaningful, face-to-face interactions with patients.

Challenge

Ultimately, to deliver this sensitive project, the client needed a partner with the flexibility and commitment to deliver , so that the company could:

  • Provide patients with quick, accurate answers
  • Empower medical staff to focus on face-to-face interactions
Using AI to provide patients with answers fast

The AI Transformation

As a longstanding partner, HCLTech is attuned to the organization’s unique requirements and sensitivities. This, as well as our distinct ability to deliver the interactive solution that would establish the backbone of the study — while protecting patient information - led to our selection.

With the HCLTech Copilot CoE, we leveraged Microsoft Copilot Studio to develop and deploy a customized solution that was fit for purpose. It is structured around a three-tiered topic system — starting with basic clinic information, moving to patient-facing materials and ending with professional organization guidelines — to ensure comprehensive coverage and escalation to medical professionals, as needed.

The AI Transformation1
The AI Transformation2

The solution also features Microsoft Power Automate — behind-the-scenes process automation that integrates seamlessly to monitor practically every possible manual process within the study.

All built on the cloud database Microsoft Dataverse to meet the study’s needs, we ultimately delivered a frictionless self-service interaction model for the study’s hundreds of participants, which will stretch the full four-year period.

The Business Results

While the study is currently in progress, the solution is delivering desired outcomes:

Accurate

Trained on relevant content for accurate answers

Seamless

Microsoft Power Automate guarantees a seamless escalation process

Transparent

Provides essential study metrics and analytics

Trackable

Provides ability to gauge the project’s success

Developing a customized, integrated solution has delivered significant impact, including:

EfficiencyEfficiency
PrecisionPrecision
ResponsivenessResponsiveness

By training Microsoft Copilot Studio’s solution on relevant content from over a dozen PDFs and multiple websites curated in collaboration with the client, we delivered a solution that could answer most participant questions.

Should a question remain unanswered, the solution allows the patient to initiate a categorized email to a nurse navigator via Microsoft Power Automate — guaranteeing a seamless escalation process and helping to ensure patients’ questions are answered in a timely manner. Additionally, Microsoft Copilot Studio out-of-the-box metrics are powered by Power BI, providing essential study metrics and analytics on interactions and response times.

Importantly, this data-driven approach enables the client to accurately gauge the project’s success, while supporting an environment of continuous improvement and responsiveness to participant feedback.