Philips, a global leader in health technology, on Tuesday announced a collaboration with the US-based MedChat to integrate MedChat’s live chat and AI-driven chatbot services into Philips Patient Navigation Manager, helping improve call center efficiency and speed the time to resolve patient inquiries. With the combined offering, Philips now enables its customers in North America to create automated communication workflows that function seamlessly alongside patient access and call center 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 new MedChat capabilities, patients now have the ability to perform complex tasks by linking directly with live agents using MedChat’s advanced 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. It’s 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.