In the changing healthcare system in the United States, medical practice administrators, clinic owners, and IT managers face many problems. These include more patients, lots of paperwork, and pressure to keep costs low. One big issue is how to manage repeated tasks like patient outreach, collecting data, scheduling, and care records while keeping patients involved and happy. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) automation with Electronic Health Records (EHR) and population health tools offers a way to solve these problems. Healthcare systems like ThedaCare show how AI can change admin tasks for the better, using resources well and improving patient care.
AI automation in healthcare mainly works to do repeated, rule-based jobs that need little clinical judgment but take up a lot of time for staff. These include calling patients for reminders, finding care gaps, setting appointments, and documenting patient visits. The goal of automating these tasks is to lower the workload and burnout of healthcare workers and to make operations run smoother.
In big healthcare systems, manual outreach often gets low patient response because staff have limited time. For example, old methods where staff call patients to remind them of needed screenings get only about a 10% return rate. This slows down patient care and wastes resources without improving results.
ThedaCare is a not-for-profit health system serving over 650,000 people in Wisconsin. They used an AI platform made by Notable to automate finding care gaps, outreach, and scheduling. In three months, ThedaCare’s digital assistants made over 900 automated outreach contacts and closed 963 care gaps. They had better patient engagement, with about 30% of patients responding after AI outreach compared to 10% from manual calls.
About 26% of care gaps closed came from visits scheduled by the AI system. The other 74% happened through patient information collected during automated calls. This combination shows how AI can handle different outreach tasks at the same time.
ThedaCare says AI automation saved about 350 staff hours in three months. This saved time lets healthcare workers spend more time on clinical duties and harder tasks. The AI agents linked with ThedaCare’s EHR system (Epic) and population health tools helped by automating documentation and making sure visits and patient data were recorded quickly and accurately.
EHR systems hold patient information in modern healthcare. They keep track of diagnostic history, test results, vaccinations, medicines, and more. Population health tools look at data for many patients, find health trends, risk factors, and check for care gaps, especially for value-based care and quality measures.
Connecting AI automation with these systems is very important to improve workflows. When AI finds open care gaps in EHR data, it can reach out to patients by calls or messages without people needing to do it. AI then collects patient answers, records results, and updates the EHR, keeping the data correct.
This connection also lets AI tailor outreach based on patient details, health complexity, or past response history, which helps improve patient reply rates.
AI automation in healthcare is useful for more than just patient outreach and scheduling. It can improve many admin and clinical tasks such as:
Automating these jobs helps healthcare groups lower paperwork, improve accuracy, and follow rules better.
One main benefit of AI is cutting down on repeated manual work that takes up much staff time. This was clear in ThedaCare’s case, where 350 staff hours were saved in only three months. This means less overtime, less burnout, and the ability to help more patients without hiring more people.
Also, AI uses natural language processing to talk with patients in normal conversation style, making communication easier and less annoying. These talks can gather important health data, confirm tests done, and quickly set appointments. This helps patients have a better experience and stick to their care plans or preventive steps.
For medical practice managers and IT leaders across the U.S., using AI with EHR and population health systems brings many benefits:
Even though the benefits are clear, medical leaders should think about some points for good AI use:
ThedaCare’s experience shows how AI can automate all parts of patient outreach to close care gaps:
This process helps close care gaps faster, lowers risks from missed care, and improves patient health.
Value-based care pays providers based on patient results and efficiency, not just service amount. Closing care gaps quickly is important to meet quality goals linked to payment. AI outreach helps by improving following care rules, cutting missed visits, and making sure preventive care happens on time.
Automation also lowers risks of costly problems by encouraging early treatment when gaps are found. By making documentation and chart reviews easier, AI helps providers meet quality reporting with less manual work.
For medical practice managers and IT leaders in the U.S., adding AI automation to existing EHR and population health systems is a useful way to cut staff workload and improve workflows. The results seen by ThedaCare, including three times more patient contacts and hundreds of saved staff hours, are strong proof for wider use.
As healthcare faces money limits and more patient needs, AI automation can help staff use time well and make sure patients get the right care at the right time. This matches national goals to improve care quality, push preventive health, and support clinicians’ well-being.
AI Agents automate repetitive workflows such as care gap outreach, patient scheduling, and documentation, enabling healthcare organizations to increase patient engagement and close care gaps efficiently without additional staffing.
ThedaCare used Notable’s AI-powered digital assistants to automate detection, outreach, and scheduling for patients with open care gaps, allowing real-time patient interaction and remote data collection to accelerate care gap closure.
ThedaCare closed over 900 care gaps in 3 months, achieved an 89% patient satisfaction rating, saved an estimated 350 staff hours, and increased patient outreach approximately threefold compared to manual methods.
By timely identifying and closing care gaps, AI-driven outreach reduces missed diagnoses, prevents costly or invasive treatments, improves clinical outcomes, and enhances performance on value-based care contracts.
Workflows automated include registration and intake, scheduling and referrals, authorizations, care gap closure, and Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) chart reviews.
AI Agents interact with patients via natural language, collect relevant health data remotely (e.g., blood pressure readings), confirm completed procedures, and enable immediate scheduling of follow-up visits.
Customization allows workflows to be tailored to specific patient populations, improving efficiency and patient engagement by addressing unique healthcare needs and demographics.
ThedaCare’s solution integrated with Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems like Epic and population health solutions to streamline data access and automate workflows at scale.
By automating repetitive tasks such as patient outreach calls, AI significantly reduces manual workload, freeing staff to focus on complex clinical tasks while managing increased patient volume without extra hiring.
High patient satisfaction (89% at ThedaCare) indicates acceptance and trust in AI-driven communication, which is crucial for engagement, adherence to care plans, and ultimately improving health outcomes.
Simbo is using AI agents to automate all phone related workflows. Connect now to know more.
Schedule AI Agents Demo Now© Since 2019, Simbo AI.
