Healthcare organizations face numerous challenges today, from financial pressures to workforce shortages and the increasing complexity of patient care. In this environment, AI is a powerful tool for healthcare leaders. However, not all patients are excited about the technology.
Research shows 60% of patients are uncomfortable with AI used in their care. Humanizing the technology can augment, rather than replace, the human touch. NRC Health's approach focuses on using AI to improve efficiencies and patient outcomes, while allowing clinicians to remain focused on delivering quality care.
"Our foray into healthcare AI is to focus on the aspects of AI patients are still OK with," Vinitha Ramnathan, chief product officer of NRC Health, told Becker's. "The part they're comfortable with is using AI for efficiency and to ensure their visit has the best possible outcome."
Humanizing AI in Healthcare
NRC Health is at the forefront of redefining the landscape of patient care and experience with their groundbreaking AI engine dubbed Huey. Huey was developed with a clear objective: to address long-standing challenges in healthcare by bridging the gap between human connections and technological innovation.
"Healthcare is a lot about human connections, and there's not a great place to put that in the database today," said Christophe Louvion, chief product and technology officer at NRC Health. "Databases are great for putting numbers, maybe some short sentences, but databases are not very good at handling unstructured data."
The company's approach with Huey leverages AI to synthesize this unstructured data – such as patient feedback, clinical interactions, and staff experiences – and transform it into actionable insights. What makes Huey unique is its ability to process large volumes of information and produce meaningful outcomes while keeping the focus on human interaction.
"Healthcare experiences are human experiences," Ms. Ramnathan told Becker's. "Healthcare experiences are siloed today and that reflects in the human experiences as well. There are a lot of silos in healthcare and having technology that unifies it, especially with AI, is the digital transformation healthcare needs."
Huey is designed to assist healthcare workers by removing administrative burdens and allowing them to focus on what truly matters: patient care.
"We've trained our homegrown engine to be very personal, user-friendly, and adaptive as the environment in healthcare is changing," Christophe Louvion, chief product and technology officer at NRC Health, said. "We've really taken a lot of time to build engines that support our four pillars: personalization, user friendly, adaptiveness and integration."
AI as a catalyst for human understanding
NRC Health's AI platform powers a suite of solutions aimed at enhancing both patient and staff experiences. The company's recent product launches include four AI-driven tools: Inquire, Engage, Enact, and Enlighten. These solutions are designed to improve various aspects of healthcare delivery, from patient feedback management to personalized staff performance assessments.
nQuire: This smart feedback summary tool that provides narrative responses to questions about patient feedback data. It allows healthcare providers to quickly synthesize large amounts of data and gain deeper insights into patient experiences.
nGage: This tool enables the collection and analysis of unstructured data from various touchpoints in the patient journey, such as registration, care interactions, and post-care follow-ups. By listening to and analyzing feedback in real-time, nGage helps healthcare providers respond more effectively to patient needs.
nAct: This service recovery tool that prioritizes and creates intelligent responses to patient feedback. nAct helps healthcare staff quickly address service issues, ensuring timely and effective responses.
nLighten: This is a personalized narrative tool that provides clinicians with a gamified feedback system, making it easier to understand and act on patient insights. The tool uses badges and simplified reports to highlight key areas of performance improvement.
nVolve: This tool enables a predictive conversation for patients and employees built with the best of Nobl, a recent acquisition
Each of these tools is powered by Huey's AI capabilities and designed to improve the efficiency of healthcare organizations while keeping the patient at the center of care.
Recent growth
NRC Health has strengthened its position in the healthcare space through strategic partnerships and acquisitions. The acquisition of Nobl and a partnership with Medallia announced in August have further enhanced the company’s capabilities in patient and employee experience management. Nobl's rounding solution integrates seamlessly with NRC Health's AI, enabling healthcare providers to have more informed and impactful patient interactions.
"Rounding is a key aspect of the patient management cycle," Mr. Louvion said. "You can imagine before going into a room, what a nurse needs to know about a patient, maybe it's a new patient and they have limited information. They have a lot of patients to see, so mapping the knowledge they have about patients and bringing the humanized version of the patient in the hands of the nurse before they walk into the room is very critical."
Medallia, on the other hand, brings industry-leading expertise in consumer and employee experience to the table. Ms. Ramnathan noted that the partnership with Medallia strengthens NRC Health's offerings in these areas, providing healthcare organizations with the tools to improve both patient and employee satisfaction.
What's next?
Looking ahead, NRC Health is poised for continued growth and innovation. The company is working on a new suite of personalized assistants, under the brand name Empower, that will help healthcare leaders, clinicians, and staff manage their roles more effectively.
The company has a powerful AI engine and large language models to facilitate data insights and reimagine where the human experience and understanding can go.
"We are creating a series of personalized assistants that can help different personas that are part of the journey manage their journeys better," said Ms. Ramnathan. "Whether that person is a physician trying to make the most of a patient visit or that persona is somebody in the office of the CEO trying to frame the strategy for the next three to five years, or that persona is focused purely on the employee experience."