Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, today announced a collaboration with USA-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.

Since its introduction a year ago, Philips Patient Navigation Manager has experienced widespread adoption among health systems in the USA, generating early success for customers including an 86% reduction in same-day cancellations [1], a 45% reduction in no-shows [2], and a 30% increase in referral conversion efficiency [3]. Philips Patient Navigation Manager easily scales across the enterprise, and is conveniently accessible through a mobile device or computer without the need for patients to download an app.  

“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 Solutions 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.”

“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, Founder and CEO at 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 digitally connect patients to practitioners outside the hospital or clinic. Earlier this year, Philips teamed with openDoctor to integrate real-time patient self-scheduling capabilities into Philips Patient Navigation Manager. The customizable, single-vendor solution for radiology patient management aims to reduce lost slots, improve speed of scheduling, optimize appointment preparation, and improve patient and staff satisfaction.

Philips Patient Navigation Manager, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, will be highlighted at this year’s Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Annual Meeting (November 28 – December 2, 2021, Chicago, U.S.A.). Join Philips at RSNA 2021 where the company will spotlight its latest portfolio of radiology workflow solutions and smart connected imaging systems to increase efficiency and diagnostic confidence in precision care and treatment, and follow @PhilipsLiveFrom for updates throughout RSNA.

[1] Balakrishnan AS, Nguyen HG, Shinohara K, Au Yeung R, Carroll PR, Odisho AY. A Mobile Health Intervention for Prostate Biopsy Patients Reduces Appointment Cancellations: Cohort Study. Journal of medical Internet research. 2019;21(6):e14094.12
[2] Solonowicz O, Stier MW, Kim K, Kupfer SS, Sengupta N. 860 Digital Navigation Improves No Show Rates and Bowel Preparation Quality for Patients Undergoing Colonoscopy – A Randomized Controlled Study. Gastroenterology. 2020;158(6):S-176.13
[3] Feng A, Elias J, Hart K, Roberts P, Laskowski K. Automated Patient Navigation Platform Increases Referral Conversion for Surgical Consultations. Paper presented at: Connected Health Conference 2018; Boston, MA.