AI-Driven Partnership Aims to Improve Patient Outcomes, Care Access

Prime Healthcare has announced a strategic partnership with artificial intelligence (AI) and automation company Steer Health to implement a platform aimed at improving access to care and patient outcomes in its 45 hospitals and 300 outpatient centers across 14 states.

Under the partnership, Prime Healthcare will launch the PrimeHealthNow platform, which utilizes Steer Health’s digital engagement tools to help guide patients along the care continuum and coordinate care. According to the press release, the platform provides AI-enabled conversational texting, live customer navigation, and access to 24/7 virtual care to support a personalized consumer experience.

The overall goal of implementing the platform is to help lower the cost of care and improve health outcomes. Using the platform, patients can make online reservations for urgent care and primary care appointments, as well as emergency room visits.

Other platform implementation goals include closing care gaps, elevating digital interactions to at least 50 percent of all engagements, and extending care teams’ reach and engagement capabilities. Further, the platform enables real-time feedback on patient experience, the press release states.

"We are pleased to partner with Steer Health to design a network of care centered around patients," said Kavitha Bhatia, MD, chief medical officer of strategy at Prime Healthcare, in the press release. "Steer Health's innovative offerings will help us improve operational efficiency so that our caregivers can focus on what they do best: providing high quality patient care. Steer Health's emphasis on personalized relationship-based outreach sets it apart and made it clear that Steer Health was the right partner for us."

Prime Healthcare will deploy the PrimeHealthNow platform, along with Steer Health’s full suite of products, at all its hospitals and medical groups.  

This partnership is the latest in an ongoing effort by healthcare organizations to integrate AI, automation, and data analytics into their care management strategies.

In July, HealthITAnalytics sat down with Todd Beardman, MD, chief medical information officer, and Kristen Guillaume, chief information officer, at North Kansas City Hospital to discuss how the hospital is harnessing intelligent automation to bridge care gaps for patients.

In another interview, Ed Helvig, patient access manager at Central Ohio Primary Care (COPC), spoke to HealthITAnalytics about how the organization is using data analytics to streamline referrals and improve the primary care experience, which can help enhance overall care coordination and close care gaps.

More recently, Baptist Health South Florida announced that it would implement Innovaccer’s Health Cloud platform to enhance population health analytics, provider engagement, and care management across its health system.