How Chatbots and AI Improve the Lives of Doctors and Patients

The introduction of chatbots and artificial intelligence is nothing new, in fact, the usage of this technology is steadily growing in both scope and effectiveness. As the implementation of AI spans across multiple industries, from banking to retail, the power of these programs is positively disrupting the way both employees work and the experience consumers gain. Specifically, in the arena of chatbots, this technology has provided new avenues for communication, customer satisfaction, time-saving, and more. Chatbots, while still in the early years of understanding their true potential, has been a bright spot in bringing 21st-century solutions to modern-day trends.

When looking at chatbots in healthcare, their value is two-fold: both doctors and patients benefit. A common sticking point with healthcare is physician workload and responsive patient care. This issue is nothing new, as medicine has always been plagued with juggling fewer doctors than ill people. While discovering the golden ratio between physician workload and patient care has not been solved with chatbots, it has improved in an impactful way — seen on both sides of the equation.

Practical Ways Chatbots Are Improving Healthcare

Today, many Americans still struggle to find healthcare or lack nearby resources in their geographic region. However, many of these same individuals and families have access to high-speed internet and smart devices (cellphones, tablets, computers). By interweaving chatbots into the healthcare industry, a new segment of patient populations are being exposed to resources that they may currently lack. Additionally, chatbots help to reduce the barrier to entry by providing proactive information to visitors.

*Visitor on a clinic’s homepage*
Chatbot: Good afternoon! How can I assist you today?
Chatbot: Do you need to schedule an appointment with a doctor as soon as possible?
Chatbot: Cold and flu season is approaching. Are you curious about the closest place where you receive a flu shot?

This is just one example of how question probing is a productive way of engaging and helping patients avoid becoming lost on a healthcare website. Ultimately, chatbots are doing two things to improve the lives of doctors and patients. First, by reducing the patient load for physicians by fielding medical queries, providing basic medical advice (or scheduling a visit with a doctor if necessary), asking about symptoms, giving nutritional advice, and more. Secondly, patients expect speedy response times from caregivers. Chatbots are enabling patients to receive faster care, in addition to helping organize specific needs such as setting an appointment or finding a nearby pharmacy to receive a prescription.

Specific Examples of the Impact of Chatbots

The beauty of chatbots is their customization. The AI technology can be catered to any specific sector of healthcare, and further zeroed into any specific set of tasks. Chatbot technology capitalizes on its versatility, and in doing so, helps serve a variety of functions for physicians and patients.

Using advanced natural language processing (NLP), chatbots are able to act on behalf of physicians in areas of postnatal care, specifically regarding breastfeeding. A current chatbot under the name of SafedrugBot, offers messaging services to new mothers with proper dosing, drug side effects, and helps the corresponding physician monitor the progress of the mother.

Florence is another chatbot that has increasingly grown in popularity in recent years. Named after the mother of modern-day nursing, Florence Nightingale, this chatbot serves as an everyday nurse to patients — providing medication reminders, tracking weight, menstrual periods, moods, and also helping locate local doctors and pharmacies.

Nutrition is a large part of daily life that Americans seek professional medical help in understanding and managing. Forksy is a healthcare chatbot that assists in tracking calories and suggesting positive eating habits. Chatbots like these can not only help patients manage their food intake, but also physicians who can help cut down on necessary patient visits.

Self-diagnosis is another area in healthcare that chatbots are benefiting. People are notorious for scouring the internet for information regarding their symptoms and then diagnosing themselves without the opinion or examination of a trained physician. Chatbots like Buoy Health are here to help minimize misinformation and inaccurate self-diagnosis by taking note of symptoms, answering queries, and matching that information against a medical database. Based on the results, the chatbot is programmed to offer the appropriate advice.

CancerChatbot and Woebot are two of the most forward-thinking medical advancements in regards to AI. These two chatbots address heavy medical issues plaguing many individuals and families in today’s healthcare environment — cancer and mental health. A cancer diagnosis comes with a lot of question marks, and CancerChatbot was created to act as an information liaison between physician and patient. The technology is designed to give cancer patients verified, accurate information regarding their specific diagnosis. Woebot builds upon the NLP technology and helps patients suffering from anxiety and depression by listening to the struggles of the patient and using cognitive-behavioral therapy to suggest remedies as a therapist. This idea is centered around the research that people may feel more comfortable speaking with a chatbot, rather than a real human.

Conclusion: Why Chatbots Have a High Ceiling in Healthcare

In the overall scope of healthcare, chatbot technology covers a minuscule amount of tasks and needs. However, with this first generation of AI technology, problems have been identified and improved. From helping patients schedule remote consultations with doctors to disseminating accurate information to healthcare consumers — the potential for chatbots cannot be ignored.

Both physicians and patients have benefited from these AI-driven conversationalists, and while they do not solve all the problems that currently exist in the eyes of both parties, chatbots have carved a new road to explore in the quest of bettering healthcare experiences

QliqSOFT Can Answer Your Chatbot Questions

QlipSOFT’s platform and chabot, Quincy, provides organizations and healthcare providers a secure, user-friendly application that goes beyond HIPAA complaint minimum standards. In doing so, we have developed a software program that is designed to improve your security practices while also enhancing your group’s communication habits and efficiency.

Contact us today at (866) 295-0451 about a free demo, or how to start implementing our technology at your health company!

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QliqSOFT Puts Safety in the Hands of Home Health and Hospice Nurses with New Care Delivery Tracking and Reporting App

New post-acute visit management app provides real-time business-enhancing delivery-data and instant distress notification for hospice and home healthcare agencies

 

Dallas, TX – November 4, 2019

 

QliqSOFT, an industry leader in secure, HIPAA-compliant clinical communication solutions, is unveiling its home health nurse distress notification-enabled mobile care-delivery app, Visit Path, at the 2019 National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization Conference, this week. 

 

Visit Path is a care delivery resource management app designed to provide hospice and post-acute business administration with data that improves business and patient outcomes. Additionally, Visit Path puts safety in the hands of the home health nurse. Visit Path provides a quick, discreet means of notifying staff should a nurse need urgent assistance during a visit or while en route.

 

“This app is a good solution for hospice and home healthcare agencies that want more insight into their care delivery data to reduce costs and improve their business outcomes,” says QliqSOFT Founder and CEO Krishna Kurapati. “Additionally, the distress notification provides safety and security for nurses while visiting homes and if they should run into trouble while in transit between visits.”

 

“We wanted to provide hospice and home healthcare agencies with a product that gives them real-time knowledge of completed patient visits activity to help them better manage their field staff,” Krishna also said. The Visit Path web-based administrator’s dashboard integrates with GPS-enabled smart devices to ensure patient care delivery is optimized, on time and recorded. This, along with the ability to manage unscheduled and after-hours visits, improves patient and home health nurse satisfaction, patient outcomes, billing accuracy and a digital record that prevents ensures government reimbursements are never penalized.

 

As a real-time, GPS-enabled care management delivery solution, Visit Path verifies where and when a hospice or home health field nurse is on duty, begins service for a client, when they complete service and when they are off duty. This verification of service is the basis for accurate, compliant billing. The administrator’s dashboard is a window into ROI.

 

With a focus on home health, hospice, and other post-acute verticals, QliqSOFT is excited to share the news of Visit Path to coincide with the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization’s (NHPCO) annual Interdisciplinary Conference. More information about Visit Path can be found at www.qliqsoft.com/visitpath.

 

About QliqSOFT, Inc.

 

With its unique cloud pass-thru architecture, QliqSOFT’s Secure Texting, On-Call Scheduling, Patient Communication, and Clinical Collaboration solutions are trusted by over 1,000 Hospitals, Home Health, and Hospice Organizations to deliver HIPAA-compliant, reliable, and real-time communication between doctors, nurses, caregivers, and patients. To learn more, visit www.qliqsoft.com.

 

Media Contact: Ben Henson | Dir of Marketing | c: 770-688-4689 | e: bhenson@qliqsoft.com

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Smart Health Technology Innovates Post-CABG Surgery Patient Engagement

Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery is the second most common cardiac surgical procedure performed in the United States. Unfortunately, this surgery is associated with a high number of unplanned hospital readmissions. According to the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, the average readmission rate after CABG surgery is 15.1% and, they note, some hospitals may have significantly higher unplanned readmission rates. In fact, a study conducted by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons found unplanned readmission rates following CABG as high as 23%. These unplanned readmissions represent significant expense for the public and great risk to the patient. Readmissions such as these should be curtailed and can be with improved patient communication and education at discharge and during follow-up care.

 

In 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) added CABG to the six condition/procedure-specific 30-day risk-standardized unplanned readmission measures they track as a component of The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP). This program supports a national goal for the improvement of healthcare for Americans by linking payment for services to the quality of hospital care, of which unplanned readmissions are a key unit of measure. As a Medicare value-based purchasing program, CMS can reduce payments to hospitals with excess readmissions.

 

Crucial to reducing these costs and risk of patient morbidity and mortality is the development and implementation of appropriate multifaceted interventions that improve patient outcomes upon hospital discharge. Achieving the highest level of physical health and quality of life for patients following CABG is often made more challenging by common comorbidities associated with ischemic heart disease. After the patient is discharged, any number of conditions may arise that can cause a decline in postoperative health requiring readmission and placing the patient at higher risk for morbidity or mortality. How, then, can hospitals better assess high risk patients and engage CABG patients in their recovery post-discharge?

 

Ensuring Care Continuity is Critical to Post-CABG Patient Outcomes

Hospitals must carefully implement a potentially complex discharge transition to reduce the risk of unplanned readmission following CABG Surgery. Discharge procedures may vary depending on specific patient needs and whether the patient is being discharged home or to a care facility. Regardless of where the patient receives the next level of care upon discharge ─ a rehabilitation (rehab) center, skilled nursing facility (SNF), assisted living community or home ─ the way this transition is planned and handled can dramatically influence the patient’s recovery success.

 

Continuity of care is the foundation of patient health and satisfaction during transitions from one care provider to another. The most effective means of ensuring continuity of care is patient-centered communication among all stakeholders. Yet, a study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco and published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found more than 25% of hospital readmissions could be avoided with better communication among healthcare teams and between providers and patients.

 

According to a study published in the July 2019 issue of The American Journal of Cardiology, CABG Surgery readmission costs an average of $13,392 per patient, accounting for an estimated annual cost of over $250 million. A study conducted by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council found that as many as 35% of CABG Surgery patients were readmitted to a different hospital from the one where they received their surgery, which exemplifies care management communication failure. These rates of readmission are increasingly scrutinized and reported. This performance data will, undoubtedly, continue impacting reimbursement rates.

 

Ideally, care transition plans identify potential complications and comorbidities specific to the diagnosis being treated. This is especially true for surgeries and other procedures that are shown to involve greater risk factors for readmission due to post-op complications such as CABG.

 

Because patients who undergo CABG Surgery are known to be at increased risk for complications and readmission, a chatbot designed specifically for post-CABG patients is far more effective at reducing those risks. A chatbot that knows when to prompt the recovering CABG patient and what data to solicit creates proactive dialogue between the healthcare organization, primary care physician, the patient, and the patient’s care team. This dialogue facilitates the monitoring of the recovery progress specific to those concerns most common in post-CABG patients.

 

What is a Chatbot and How do the Help?

A chatbot is a computer program that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) designed specifically to enable dialogue with people via automated, scripted text messages, as well as live-agent text messaging. Businesses use chatbots to attract, keep and satisfy customers. A chatbot is like a virtual assistant. By maintaining a conversation providing information and solutions, a chatbot can save time and ease communication. For instance, chatbots can book appointments, provide service information and even coordinate services. The underlying benefit to any chatbot is the facilitation of communication.

 

In a healthcare setting, chatbots are used to combat communication gaps and ensure proactive communication between patients and their care provider. Innovative technologies and personalized programs are being increasingly implemented with promising results. These innovations provide improved patient engagement, enhanced patient experience, increased data interoperability, patient health information (PHI) security, and improved patient outcomes.

 

Ranging from patient reminders to the identification of symptoms, medication management and chronic condition monitoring while protecting sensitive PHI, these new technologies are creating a digital ecosystem of ‘smart health.’ A key component of the digital ecosystem, automated chatbots powered by AI are enabling convenience-driven access to care and nurturing proactive two-way relationships between patient and care provider.

 

Meet Quincy and the Chatbot Created Specifically for Post-Op CABG

QliqSOFT, a leading developer of HIPAA-compliant, innovative healthcare communication technology solutions, has created ‘Quincy,’ a healthcare-specific chatbot that provides personalized and scalable communication that improves patient experience and patient outcomes.

 

As a conversational patient engagement platform that leverages AI technology, Quincy is dynamic, smart, flexible and scalable. Quincy is designed to implement easily by selecting from a pre-built library of healthcare-specific chatbots such as the CABG surgery chatbot, or healthcare providers can customize Quincy to suit their specific needs. Either way, the Quincy chatbot facilitates and promotes patient engagement.

 

Quincy CABG Surgery Chatbot Reduces Readmissions

Healthcare providers know that in order to prevent readmissions, post-CABG patients must be informed and empowered. The absence of very clear, concise and ongoing communication between the patient and care teams, sets the stage for potential readmission.

 

Rather than simply collecting generic patient assessment information, the Quincy CABG surgery chatbot is designed to collect care assessment data relative to the 10 most common causes of readmission after CABG, which provides opportunity for the care team to intervene early and proactively, thereby reducing the patient’s risk of readmission. Additionally, the Quincy CABG chatbot provides a personalized patient experience through which self-care recommendations are shared, patient questions are answered, data transmitted via radio frequency (RF) from medical devices is received, and the patient remains connected to the care-team all while protecting PHI.

 

Discharge Does Not Stipulate Healed

Often, patients interpret discharge as synonymous with completed treatment. This misinterpretation can lead to poor patient outcomes and costly readmissions. The Quincy post-CABG Surgery chatbot guides CABG patients through their recovery upon discharge to ensure instructions are followed and symptomatic changes are addressed. By proactively providing personalized, targeted education and care assessments specific to the most common causes of readmission following CABG, the Quincy post-CABG chatbot helps reduce readmissions and costly, avoidable complications.

 

According to a study published in The U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), more than 60% of CABG surgery readmissions are estimated to occur within 10 days of discharge. Given the high costs and the frequent readmission and morbidity associated with CABG, if hospitals are to curb CABG readmissions, these care facilities must implement multimodal and multifaceted intervention programs that break from traditional means and embrace new technologies enabling proactive patient engagement and improved patient outcomes.

 

Getting the Upper Hand on CABG Surgery Readmissions

Hospitals that demonstrate lower CABG readmission rates have a market advantage. Care-quality data published through initiatives such as HRRP influences healthcare consumer decisions when choosing healthcare providers. Those hospitals with lower readmission rates attract more opportunities to deliver care and experience fewer financial penalties from federal funding sources such as CMS. Ultimately, patient experience plays an increasingly influential role in driving healthcare consumerism. Hospitals that provide a satisfying patient experience through patient engagement become the providers of choice.

 

By embodying the role of a virtual assistant, the Quincy CABG chatbot is pivotal in bridging the gap between post-op CABG patients and their care teams. In her healthcare analysis entitled “2019 Global healthcare outlook ─ Shaping the future,” Dr. Stephanie Allen, Deloitte Global Public Health & Social Services sector leader wrote, “Digital innovation is supporting and augmenting workers and not replacing them. It is allowing highly trained resources to focus on more valuable, patient-facing activities.” 

 

Clearly, digital innovations are improving healthcare delivery efficiency and accessibility. These technologies are yielding innovative models of patient-centered care and smart health approaches that are reducing costs while increasing access, affordability, and quality of healthcare. QliqSOFT is pleased to be a leading innovator providing solutions that improve the delivery of healthcare for all.  

 

QLIQ HERE to learn how the Quincy CABG surgery chatbot can improve your patient outcomes.

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5 Ways AI is Changing Healthcare

These days the term Artificial Intelligence (AI) is thrown around like so many other buzzwords of the past decade. Healthcare industry experts see it as “the next big thing” or as the ultimate disrupter on par with Uber. But how will it really change the state of healthcare? We sat down with QliqSOFT CEO and resident machine learning expert, Krishna Kurapati to get his take on the 5 Ways AI is changing healthcare.

What’s the state of AI in the healthcare industry today?

Compared to other industries such as Retail and Finance, Healthcare lags in the use of AI. Probabilistic approaches, which AI is all about, do not work well in Healthcare as it is often a question of life and death. Due to HIPAA compliance and the business practices of healthcare, particularly in the US, data lives on islands.  

What’s the #1 trend shaping AI in healthcare this year? 

Natural Language Processing, which helps in reducing screen time and improves face to face encounters with patients has been the dominant use case of AI in Healthcare. Symptom checker has been popping up as the next wave of AI application.

What’s the #1 challenge to AI adoption in healthcare?

AI thrives on Data. Lack of interoperability and data sharing are the reasons why it’s hard to get quality data to train AI models. Healthcare organizations and vendors need to work closely to find secure ways to share and utilize this data. In fact, I feel that hospitals are willing, but the vendors, especially the developers of many EHR platforms are reluctant to unlock their APIs for true interoperability to occur.

What’s the #1 benefit AI brings to healthcare?

Technology is supposed to relieve bottlenecks and improve efficiency. Unfortunately, healthcare technology initiatives tend to create the opposite effect. Physicians today spend more time in front of their computer than in front of the patient. The greatest benefit Artificial Intelligence provides is the ability to free clinicians from devices and bring them closer to patients and aid in diagnosing and treating conditions based on the latest research. 

What’s the future of AI in healthcare?

Due to rising costs and cheap computing worldwide combined with an aging population, AI can manifest in many applications. We are already seeing shoots of such applications like Conversational Bots to help navigate patient journey to diagnosing cancer. AI will make significant strides as the US mandate to interoperability of healthcare data goes mainstream.

Final Thoughts

Krishna’s thoughts published here are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Healthcare and Artificial Intelligence. From natural language processing to “smart” agent escalation, the future holds great potential for this technology and QliqSOFT plans to be part of the conversation. Stay tuned to qliqsoft.com over the coming months to see how we are addressing AI and how we plan to incorporate Artificial Intelligence into our family of products.

To learn more about QliqSOFT, click here.

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Healthcare Chatbots and the Future of Clinical Collaboration

When it comes to increasing patient satisfaction, reducing readmission, and improving your bottom line, what are the possibilities for healthcare chatbots? Technological advances have made a world of difference in the delivery of quality healthcare to patients across the world. From connected medical devices to electronic health records, technology provides doctors and nurses a way to better connect with their respective patient populations in ways that were never even thought of 20 years ago.

 

What makes any healthcare technology successful is the ability to engage with patients. Experts believe that by involving the patient in their own care, it is possible to greatly reduce the risk of readmission. Secure messaging through mobile apps like our own Qliq Secure Texting has gone far to address these engagement issues by bringing the patient into the conversation with their care team. Telehealth strives to take this further by creating one-on-one connections via video between patients and remote provider locations. Now, there is an opportunity to combine communication technology with artificial intelligence as a way to bridge the remaining communication and engagement gaps.

 

Enter chatbots. Healthcare chatbots are software integrated into either a website or mobile app and possess any combination of the following attributes:

 

• Natural Language Processing: The ability for a chatbot or other form of artificial intelligence to understand aspects of language, including syntax and semantics from users of various backgrounds.
  
  
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• Conditional Logic: Based on the responses a user provides, chatbots that use conditional logic are able to route conversations to the appropriate database or individual.
  
  
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• Contextual AI: Just as the name suggests, contextual AI takes into consideration the intent of the user as they ask questions and submit responses, thus ensuring the best relevant conversation takes place.

 

The sophistication of these attributes healthcare chatbots may vary but one thing must remain true for a chatbot to engage patients – it must have bi-directional input. Often times these apps are used as the first point of contact for customer service or technical support needs. They are programmed to respond to basic inquiries utilizing conditional logic and basic database information. Less common, but growing applications rely on artificial intelligence to help provide more in-depth, actionable responses that take intent and context into consideration.

 

Chatbots in Modern Industry

Industries across the board currently rely on chatbot technology to connect with customers. This communication can range from general customer service or sales inquiries to technical support and more advanced conversations. Below are a few examples of how several industries are currently using chatbots to expand their relationships with customers.

 

Retail

Retailers, both online and those with brick-and-mortar locations, rely on chatbot technology to serve as a touch point between customers and an online marketplace. Depending on the products being sold, those conversations can range in topic from basic pricing questions to more advanced marketing-driven dialog designed to address items abandoned in a shopping cart. Fashion retailer H&M has been relying on chatbot technology since 2016. Instead of existing on their lives site, this chatbot operates in the Kik messaging app, which is actively used by 40% of US teenagers (the brand’s core demographic).

 

Banking

Banking takes a slightly different approach when it comes to using chatbots. Their aim in many cases is to improve customer satisfaction and engagement with their inventory of financial products. By allowing verified access to backend data, banks can provide a nearly teller-like experience by way of browser.  By doing so, customers are able to view account balances and bank statement as well as more advanced tasks such as creating a deposit, transferring funds, and even seek advice on saving and investing. The USAA app employs a chatbot to answer many basic questions and allow customers to make changes “on the fly” for example: Tell the chatbot “I’m going out of town” and a travel note will be added to your account to prevent your strange new debit card activity in Peru from being flagged.

 

Commercial Air Travel

Airlines, like many of the industries listed above, rely on chatbots to better engage with customers. This technology is deployed at various levels in order to send announcements, provide aid with ticketing, facilitate web check-ins, produce personalized search results, and connect them with travel options outside of a simple seat on a plane. Aeromexico, KLM, and a handful of other airlines rely on Facebook messenger to host their chatbot platform.

 

Healthcare Chatbots in Your Organization

The current state of chatbots in healthcare is something resembling customer-facing applications such as the ones mentioned above. These tend to help with intake, scheduling appointments, basic Q&A around medications, etc. However, there is a growing opportunity for chatbots to do much more benefit than current solutions allow such as scheduling visits and procedures, answering targeted medical questions, interacting with patients post-discharge in order to reduce readmissions, performing comprehensive medication review and more.

 

Choosing a Solution and Ensuring its Success

Who is leading the way? While there are many lists of applications, all with their own top 5 or 10 chatbot solutions, it’s worth looking at what meets the needs of a particular industry or company.  In terms of healthcare, there are just a handful of simple requirements that are vital to the successful rollout and adoption of such technology.

 

• First, the design must be simple so as to not intimidate users. For example, a simple interface that resembles basic SMS messaging produces few barriers for novice users. Consider a vendor that lets you design your own bot or guides you through that process as opposed to only offering “out of the box” solutions.

 

• Secondly, the interaction must be authentic. Most organizations utilizing chatbots do so with a certain level of Artificial Intelligence built in. The conversation flow must be able to resemble something organic and any transition between the automated agent to a live human must be seamless so as to avoid interruption.

 

• Third, and possibly most important is the incorporation of contextual AI, which allows your chatbot application to understand the intent of the patient or clinician who has initiated the dialog. Below are a few examples which illustrate the important role context can play in chatbot discussions:
  
  
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  • Inpatient: Some people think this means anyone in a hospital. However, CMS defines inpatient as anyone who stays OVER two midnights in order to bill an account at that level. If not, those patients must be billed as outpatient or day-surgery.
    
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  • Transfer: There is a misconception that transfer refers to a patient being moved from one facility to another. However, it can also refer to their level of care internally. When a patient moves from surgery to PACU, that is a LOC transfer. When they move from PACU to the unit, that is considered yet another transfer.

 

Things to Consider

Once you have chosen your chatbot, there are several considerations that must be planned for in order to ensure a successful implementation.

 

The end-to-end user experience is critical. Make sure that any pre-built conversations produce the desired result. What is the most basic information needed at the initial start of the conversation? What does the workflow look like when users are presented with yes/no or multiple choice questions? Conversely, how does the chatbot respond to questions that are open-ended?  Will patients feel as comfortable interacting with a chatbot as if it were a human being? The perception of individual attention can go far in achieving successful adoption.

 

As with most solutions, chatbots should be rolled out incrementally across an organization. Instead of trying to boil the ocean, consider taking the project in more manageable chunks. For example, design your first healthcare chatbot around only one specific use case in order to provide for a controlled environment where any issues can be addressed easily. Once chatbots have a proven use case, it will be much easier to not only sell the idea to other department heads but also provide real-life testimonials from existing users.

 

QliqSOFT and Healthcare Chatbots

Secure communication is at the core of everything we do here at QliqSOFT. That’s why we are excited to announce the development of a new chatbot tool that combines artificial intelligence and live-agent interaction all while remaining in the same familiar environment our secure texting users have relied on for years. If your organization is looking to take a leap into the future of clinical collaboration, contact us today.

from QliqSOFT http://bit.ly/2KCfTvu

Qliq University: Broadcast Best Practices

I’ve driven my car for about two years with no accidents, no malfunctions. It got me from point A to point B and I would have told you I know that car pretty well. I was a successful driver, it would seem. But on a long road trip last Sunday my husband made that car come alive. He flipped it into “Sport” mode and took off, bending curves like I have never attempted. I didn’t even know the car had a sport mode! Can you imagine, owning your car for two years and never realizing the power, or even the existence of such a key feature? No, you’re far too smart I’m sure. However, in preparation for Qliq University session two “Broadcast Best Practices” – I learned many customers experience this same “ah-ha” moment when they’re taught just what broadcast messaging is and how it can help their organization. A key feature, a simple, no-nonsense, function – was hiding right there in plain sight. This session focused on using broadcast messaging in the most efficient and effective way possible, and was as one attendee put it – “An eye opener.” If you missed the session please take 30 minutes to check it out and I’ll be re-capping some highlights below.

 

What is Broadcast Messaging?

As reviewed in class, the most significant difference between broadcast messages and all other messaging types we offer is: When you send a broadcast message all replies are directed back to the original sender only.

 

When you’re involved in a Group or Multi-party message, all participants are exposed to the replies. This is really nice when you’re seeking collaboration, but sometimes you need to send out information where replies being seen by all could overwhelm or waste time.

 

Broadcast messages are ideal for sending out information to multiple users where the responses only need to be seen by the sender, for example – alerts, codes, informational communication. We covered several examples in our class but the best ones always provide clear, concise, actionable information. These messages engage users with a call to action. For example, you could send out a broadcast message to alert licensed staff that they are in need of additional continuing education credits (to maintain their license) and provide them with a link to enroll in an upcoming skills lab to satisfy the requirement. This may have traditionally been handled by emails or flyers but our customers report much greater results by sending the message as a broadcast. Why? Because you’re putting the information in a place that they look anyway, you’re giving them the link to enroll, you can track (in message details) that they received/read the announcement, and if they do happen to have more questions they can reply without everyone seeing their reply.

 

USE CASES

During our class we reviewed several use cases from actual customers, some where they send out their code pages via Qliq broadcast, some who find their missing IV pumps by issuing alerts via Qliq broadcast, and even examples where natural disasters impacting roads and patients were communicated via broadcast with actionable recommended steps.

 

Whether there is a baby missing from the NICU, a road blocking home health aides, missing TB tests delaying new hire start dates, or upcoming community health events – a broadcast message can quickly get the word out in a secure manner and allow for real-time, private, responses.

 

What else did this session cover?

Students were guided through definitions, terms, security settings, use cases, and best practice tips. What makes one broadcast message more successful than others? We covered that. What fascinating use cases are out there among Qliq customers today? We covered that. How can I engage my user base and keep them coming back to the app for useful information? Covered. So now you have to ask yourself, what was missing from this session? If the answer is YOU then take a moment today to watch the session and enroll in our upcoming June 28th session – “User Upgrade”.

from QliqSOFT http://bit.ly/2Wzs3LT

Qliq University : Basics Bootcamp Instructor Interview

Qliq University, an online, interactive, course of webinars officially launched with it’s first class, Basics Bootcamp, on April 26th 2019. QliqSOFT customers from across the country attended to learn more about this exciting new initiative. Basics Bootcamp served as an orientation, detailing the course curriculum, goals, and more. We caught up with Jolean Sheffield, Qliq University Instructor and Director of Customer Success to learn more.

 

Creating an education forum like Qliq University takes a lot of work, what drove your team to do it?

“As a secure communication vendor, QliqSOFT is constantly seeking ways to serve our current and future customers better. We identified the need to engage our customers more, provide value through industry insight, continue the ongoing education of our user base, and obtain real-time feature feedback. Many vendors address these challenges by sending out surveys or posting a couple of how-to videos. We wanted to do more. Secure communication tools are really all about collaboration, and that’s what we wanted to offer – a secure place for our customers to collaborate with us, each other, and other experts. We recognize that together we can be inspired to reach further, build smarter, and design better solutions.”

 

How did you determine the course curriculum?

“As we evaluated the topics we could cover we knew there was an opportunity to address real industry concerns, not just provide Band-aid solutions. We developed a course that provides true insight and delivers tools, documentation, project templates, and more. We knew it would be critical to equip attendees with everything they need to tackle regulatory and compliance concerns, operational challenges, and more. Nobody would want to join a call just to hear me rattle on about how great we think our products are. Our customers face real challenges and they deserve real solutions. We don’t have all the answers but we knew that, collectively, we might just get close!”

 

What are you most excited for attendees to learn?

“We have curated some really interesting content for each of these sessions so there’s plenty of learning opportunities that I could point to, but I think what excites me the most is what we cannot structure and plan — the interaction and feedback from the attendees. We have so many amazing customers that have used Qliq in various ways and I’m excited to see what we can all glean from those experiences.”

 

How can students engage now that the orientation is over?

“ Orientation was great with a lot of really interesting customers in attendance. However, if someone missed it they can always go back and watch the recording. I think it does a good job of setting expectations. That said, all of our courses are designed to be a la carte, meaning you can register to attend the sessions that interest you the most. Seats are limited so I’m encouraging everyone to take a look at the curriculum and enroll today.”

 

Can’t people just wait and watch the videos, do they need to attend live?

“I’m really glad we are able to offer the recordings on-demand because life happens and sometimes you miss a meeting. But I do strongly encourage live attendance because that is when the collaboration occurs. Our customers are going to be speaking openly about their challenges and solutions and we want to give them the privacy to do so, for that reason the collaboration component of the sessions may not be included in the recordings.”

 

If you had to pick one DON’T MISS class – what would it be?

“Oh gosh. The October session where we look at the future of bot technology and conversational AI in healthcare is really exciting, and in November attendees will literally be shaping the future of Qliq by weighing in on our 2020 strategic road map. There’s a use case focused session in the summer as well… I’m not sure I can narrow it down much, I’m excited about each of these courses!”
To learn more about Qliq University and enroll in courses visit us online today at www.qliqsoft.com/qliqu

from QliqSOFT http://bit.ly/2DH6yyk