Hyro, developer of plug-and-play conversational artificial-intelligence (AI) solutions, announced it has begun equipping U.S. hospitals and other medical providers with AI-powered virtual assistants to help them successfully handle the mass-scheduling of COVID-19 vaccinations while stymying the spread of misinformation about the safety and efficacy of the new vaccines.
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Known as VAXA, Hyro’s Vaccine Access Solution was created in response to federal Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorizations issued Dec. 11 and Dec. 18 that cleared the way for distribution of COVID-19 vaccines from pharmaceutical companies Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
Owing to those authorizations, healthcare organizations are reported to be expecting a 500 percent increase above normal call volumes at their support centers as patients jam phone lines in a dash to obtain fact-checked information, assess their eligibility, and secure earliest-possible appointments to receive inoculation, the company explained.
Hyro said providers outfitted with VAXA can expect within a week of implementing the solution to see 40 percent or more of inbound COVID-19 vaccine appointment requests and questions deflected from their support-center agents to AI-powered virtual assistants capable of engaging in natural conversation with patients.
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The company also estimated that providers using VAXA can anticipate a 65 percent decrease in the number of callers on hold who hang up out of frustration at being unable to timely reach an agent.
“When the pandemic struck last February, the biggest fear was that hospitals would be inundated with infected patients; but, today, with the warp-speed availability of COVID-19 vaccines, that fear has shifted from hospital ICU overload to overload of hospital switchboards,” said Hyro CEO Israel Krush.
“The concern,” he continued, “is that many who are eager to receive the vaccine will be put on hold for such a long time due to call-volume overload that they’ll hang up before getting the answers they seek or, more significantly, hang up without having scheduled a vaccination.”
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