The discussion featured insights from industry leaders:

• Syed Mohiuddin, SVP and Chief AI Transformation and Strategy Officer, United Health Group
• Stephen Nash, Co-Founder, Southern Pediatrics
• Guillaume de Zwirek, CEO and Co-founder, Artera

Moderated by Anthony Guerra, founder and editor-in-chief of healthsystemCIO, the panel explored the practical realities of deploying agentic AI, from high-level strategy to on-the-ground implementation. The discussion provides a roadmap for organizations attempting to optimize resources and achieve operational improvements without increasing headcount.

The Strategic Imperative for AI Agents

The panel agreed that the adoption of AI is no longer optional; it’s existential. De Zwirek noted that AI will fundamentally rewrite technology investments across healthcare. The primary driver is the need to solve persistent problems, such as administrative waste, clinician burnout, and disjointed patient communication.

Nash emphasized this point, stating that the goal should not be to deploy agents for their own sake, but to address “burning pains” within an organization. For his pediatric practice, this means tackling challenges in charting and patient communication.

Most of these early AI opportunities are concentrated around high-frequency, high-friction workflows.

In large enterprises, Mohiuddin noted, the scope for agentic AI extends to administrative and clinical domains alike. Agents can be designed to not only provide “explanations” of past events (such as claim denials or benefit questions) but also to execute “actions,” such as guiding users through next steps or supporting claims processing. These applications help reduce the processing time for tasks like care-gap outreach and benefit alternatives, moving population health initiatives forward at much greater speed and scale.

De Zwirek described practical success in using AI to reach large patient populations and drive high rates of successful scheduling. This would reduce weeks-long processes into a matter of seconds, further illustrating AI’s potential as a force multiplier.

Governance and Interoperability as Gating Factors

Scaling AI in healthcare requires discipline akin to workforce management rather than iterative software trials. Mohiuddin stressed that successful deployment depends on rigorous frameworks for governance, design, and observability, paralleling the thoroughness involved in hiring, onboarding, and monitoring new staff. Leaders must fully understand what their agents are tasked with, institute controls for their activities, and monitor performance continuously.

De Zwirek reinforced the necessity of preemptive risk reduction, designing real-time evaluation systems and drawing on best practices from AI-driven software development, where architecture and review processes are central to preventing errors from affecting workflows at scale.

Perhaps the most critical challenge to real-world implementation is interoperability. As the panel noted, even when vendors partner closely with health systems, integration often remains the customer’s responsibility, especially in fragmented provider landscapes. Agents need reliable, timely access to EHRs, practice management systems, and downstream platforms to be effective. De Zwirek’s experience highlighted why Artera invested in building robust internal integration capabilities, and cautioned that pursuing full in-house development is only viable for organizations with significant scale and resources.

Mohiuddin added that both “speed to start” and “speed to completion” matter; often, success hinges on the last mile of integration. Leaders should treat agentic AI initiatives as vital strategic investments tied to organizational priorities, competitive advantage, and the specialized needs of their teams.

Leadership, Workforce Readiness, and the Human Element

Technology alone isn’t enough. The panelists reminded listeners that successful AI adoption demands strong leadership, transparent communication, and cultural readiness. Nash advocated for clear internal messaging that connects new tools to tangible outcomes, supporting staff in understanding how AI solutions translate to less administrative overhead and more meaningful time with patients.

Workforce preparation is equally crucial. Mohiuddin recommended formal, hands-on training for leaders and technical teams so they move beyond awareness to genuine fluency. Broad-based education helps surface governance needs and inspires safe experimentation, positioning organizations to identify both opportunities and risks.

Webinar Takeaways for Healthcare IT and Application Leaders

Interoperability and data accessibility are prerequisites for success

Agentic AI’s utility is limited by an organization’s ability to connect systems and deliver timely data.

Start with high-friction, high-impact workflows

Workflows such as documentation, messaging, scheduling, and care-gap management are solid places to start. This is where outcomes are measurable and value is quickly demonstrated.

Establish governance at a level that matches operational risk.

Invest in robust evaluation, monitoring, and controls before agents move into production.

Plan for the last mile

Whether integrating tools, adapting workflows, or managing organizational change, realize that internal effort is required in parallel with any external partnership.

Build broad-based AI fluency and align adoption with staff and patient outcomes.

Invest in training, encourage open knowledge sharing, and keep a sharp focus on benefits to clinicians and patients alike.

The message is clear: AI-driven automation offers health systems a path through resource constraints and operational complexity, but optimization requires bringing together the right processes, technologies, and people. As de Zwirek urged, now is the time for healthcare leaders to learn, experiment, and help move the industry forward by sharing lessons and building momentum beyond early adopters.

To view the recording of this webinar, Maximizing Value, Minimizing Risk: Operationalizing an Agentic AI Strategy (Sponsored by Artera), please click here.

The post Operationalizing Agentic AI in Healthcare: A Webinar Recap appeared first on Artera.

When people think of AI agents, they often picture a powerful Large Language Model (LLM) that can handle tasks with just a simple “prompt.” But building effective AI agents for healthcare is a whole different ballgame. 

These agents manage critical, multi-step workflows where the margin for error is virtually nonexistent. With incredibly high stakes, safety, accuracy, and stringent compliance are non-negotiable.

Consequently, developing production-ready, reliable and HIPAA-compliant AI agents for the healthcare industry not only demands advanced prompt engineering but a full ecosystem of solid backend tools, smart data pipelines, advanced analytics, and strict compliance frameworks. In this context, the prompt is really the foundation of a much bigger, highly connected system built to work seamlessly together.

Discover what truly differentiates enterprise-ready healthcare AI agents from consumer-grade solutions and why it matters.

What Specialized Prompt Engineering Is & Why It Matters 

Language models are essentially rich repositories of information. Our goal with prompting them is to provide clear, precise instructions and guidance, ensuring they produce responses that align with our desired outcomes. It involves a full process of writing, refining and optimizing outputs. 

Given the complexity of healthcare-related workflows, AI agents require explicit, highly structured instructions to successfully conduct natural conversations, all while adhering to strict safety and compliance guardrails. This is particularly critical in an MCP (Model Context Protocol) context where we craft prompts to support and leverage these complex instructions.

This meticulous approach enables agents to effectively handle ambiguous scenarios and complete entire workflows without skipping steps or fabricating information (aka hallucinations). Such considerations are fundamental to how we optimize agent prompts when developing our solutions.

Workflows like new patient appointment scheduling might seem like a simple conversation, but can actually be quite complex, involving numerous steps that can take more time than expected, like verifying a patient’s name, confirming insurance, reviewing appointment schedules, etc. If the agent fails at any stage of the conversation, the process falters, highlighting the significance of the explicitly detailed prompt itself. 

Effective Prompt Engineering Techniques 

Designing agentic AI for healthcare providers that’s safe and compliant involves a disciplined, multi-layered approach that integrates both technical expertise and strategic design. Below are some core techniques essential to the prompt engineering process:

1. Narrow Scope and Consistency to Create Reliable Healthcare Agents

For an agent to perform reliably in healthcare, it needs a clear job. For example, a scheduling agent should only focus on things like scheduling, rescheduling, or canceling appointments.  This can include tasks such as verifying patient identity, checking provider availability, navigating location preferences, selecting appointment types, sending confirmations, managing waitlists, handling appointment reminders, and following up on missed or canceled visits. 

When designers lay out exactly what an agent can and can’t do, it keeps the conversation on track. An overly broad prompt often yields unhelpful results from the agent.

2. Safety Guardrails to Prevent Hallucinations 

Prompts must include explicit “do/don’t” instructions to enforce safety. For example, an agent might be told, “You are not a doctor; do not provide medical advice.” These constraints prevent agents from making clinical judgments, offering diagnoses, or answering questions that should be handled by licensed professionals. Additional guardrails may include restrictions around accessing or referencing sensitive data, such as insurance information, prescription history, or protected health details unless verified through appropriate tools.

Agentic prompts within the healthcare space are also designed to ensure agents handle ambiguous responses appropriately. If a patient answers a yes-or-no question with “maybe,” the agent knows to re-ask the question until it receives a valid answer, rather than making assumptions. In high-stakes workflows, such as confirming surgical prep or managing medication instructions, these safety protocols ensure the agent stays within approved parameters, escalating to human staff when needed. 

3. Modular and Scalable Design

Writing a new, complex prompt for every customer or use case is inefficient. Instead, adopting a modular template system streamlines the process. A foundational “healthcare agent” template can include universal safety guardrails and ethical protocols, while a secondary “use case” template customizes the agent for specific workflows, such as scheduling or prescription refills. This approach ensures consistency while allowing for easy specialization.

Resist the urge to over-engineer agent prompts for a quick fix, as some vendors may throw everything into an agent prompt in service of quick implementation. While this might seem efficient for a fast go-live, it’s brittle and introduces risk. Whereas thoughtfully designed, intent-based MCP (Model Context Protocol) tools can increase performance, reduce the risk of hallucination and improve scalability.

4. Iterative and Flexible Prompts

Prompts must be designed for continuous refinement. A rigid or overly detailed prompt can lead to conflicts or unpredictable behavior. Modular, flexible prompts allow teams to quickly test and modify specific sections as needed without a complete rewrite. This iterative approach enables rapid improvements based on real-world feedback.

Measuring, Testing, and Improving AI Workflows

Testing and evaluation are critical to building reliable prompts. The process often begins by breaking down workflows from top to bottom into individual components and testing them in isolation. In simple terms: we have a goal of what the agent should be able to do from point A to point B, and so, how do we get it to point B?

Once these components are refined, end-to-end tests ensure they work together seamlessly. 

For example, for a scheduling agent, you would break down the process into multiple pieces, or checkpoints: verifying patient information, identifying why the patient is calling in, recognizing which providers the patient can see, confirming eligibility, etc. In order to create a unified experience, we would need to make sure each step works in an isolated fashion before stitching them together to successfully book the appointment. 

Think of It Like a Conversion Funnel

Once your AI agent is live, you need to keep a close eye on how it’s doing. This is where performance monitoring comes in. Think of observability dashboards as your mission control: they help you track important metrics, like how often the agent successfully completes a task, and pinpoint exactly where things might be going wrong.

You can essentially think of this example as a classic conversion funnel, where the patient comes in, and you have to go through all the checkpoints to complete scheduling. We’re always evaluating from this funnel perspective: is the agent doing what it wants? If not, where’s the drop-off, and how do we improve that? 

For example, our team noticed that name recognition was lower than expected (many patients were falling off), so we improved the way our agent was able to recognize names through some backend engineering that interacts with the prompt. With the change, our success rate for name matching increased by 46.15% for patients already in the system.

Another necessary component to evaluating and maintaining the lifecycle of agents at scale is a technique called “LLM-as-a-Judge” or LAJ. LAJ systems sift through transcripts and call recordings and score conversations based on things like task completion, compliance & safety, workflow adherence, agent errors, and patient experience. This feedback is gold for making the agent even better and reducing the burden of human evaluation on a timely basis. 

How Tools Enhance the Effectiveness of AI Agents

When we initially started building agents, we relied heavily on prompts to guide them. But we quickly learned that, instead, giving them the right tools is what really levels up the agent’s capabilities, helping it explicitly understand when and how to perform actions within the given context. 

Tools enable agents to understand what actions to take in a given context without overloading prompts with excessive instructions. By abstracting actions into the form of tools, the process becomes less error-prone, as the agent can choose from a predefined set of tools based on the situation.

For instance, when looking up a patient, a tool is used to facilitate the process of retrieving the necessary information. These tools perform backend API calls and return only structured, relevant data to the agent. The system is designed to limit an AI agent’s knowledge to only what’s necessary, reducing errors and hallucinations. Limiting responses minimizes misinterpretations and errors, thereby ensuring users fully complete the intended experience.

Having the right tools in place means we don’t need as many explicit instructions directly in the prompt (aka we don’t need to over-stuff them). We’re moving towards tools like MCP handling more of the information, acting as communication nodes for the agent to complete workflows. This shift will continue as language models get better and faster, allowing us to integrate improved solutions.

Prompts & Tools Must Work Together

As AI keeps evolving, prompts are getting shorter as models get smarter and tools become more powerful. We’re already seeing improvements in how AI “thinks through” complex responses. Multi-agent systems are also on the rise, with specialized agents handling tasks like patient verification or scheduling appointments. This modular setup makes them faster, safer, and easier to build.

In the future, better security and compliance will let agents take on bigger jobs, like processing payments or other high-trust tasks. But the key to success stays the same: combining a specialized, compliant prompt foundation with a solid system of tools, metrics, and constant improvement. Prompt engineering is important, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle for building safe, reliable AI agents for healthcare.

Today’s healthcare market is saturated with AI agent solutions, making vendor evaluation difficult for healthcare providers amidst similar claims and significant costs.

To simplify your evaluation, we’ve identified the top five factors that distinguish Artera’s AI agents today. Whether you’re new to AI agents or well into your research for a partner, we hope this distillation proves valuable.

Artera’s blog posts and press releases are for informational purposes only and are not legal advice. Artera assumes no responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of blogs and non-legally required press releases. Claims for damages arising from decisions based on this release are expressly disclaimed, to the extent permitted by law.

AI in Healthcare – FAQs

How can I evaluate the best AI agent platform for healthcare?

When considering what the best AI agent evaluation platform for healthcare is, look for solutions built specifically for the clinical, operational, and regulatory complexities of healthcare. Avoid platforms that are retrofitted from general-purpose AI tools. Key criteria should include HIPAA compliance, validated EHR integration, real-time performance monitoring, and governance frameworks that ensure safety, accuracy, and transparency. Artera delivers a purpose-built platform with a modular agent design trusted by more than 1,000 healthcare organizations and federal agencies.

What makes AI agents in healthcare different from generic AI assistants?
Healthcare AI agents must operate under strict regulatory frameworks (like HIPAA), manage complex multi-step workflows, and interact with sensitive patient data. Unlike general-purpose chatbots, they require structured prompts, safety guardrails, integration with clinical systems, and ongoing monitoring to ensure safety, accuracy, and trust.

How does Artera ensure its AI agents are safe and compliant?
Artera agents are designed with a healthcare-first approach. We do not use PHI or PII in model training, and our agents operate within a secure architecture that meets SOC 2 Type 2, HITRUST, and HIPAA compliance. Every agent follows strict governance protocols, real-time monitoring, and human oversight where needed.

What is a Model Context Protocol (MCP), and why is it important?
A Model Context Protocol is a structured way to deliver instructions, context, and tools to an AI agent. Instead of relying solely on prompts, Artera uses MCP to modularize agent behavior, improving accuracy, scalability, and safety across healthcare workflows.

Why does prompt engineering alone fall short in healthcare AI?
Prompts can guide the behavior of an AI agent, but without guardrails, backend tools, and integration into clinical systems, they can produce unpredictable or unsafe responses. In healthcare, where the margin for error is near zero, tools and testing infrastructure are just as critical as the prompt itself.

How does Artera’s modular approach support scalability?
Artera uses a layered design: a universal base agent for healthcare safety and compliance, and customizable “use case” templates for workflows like scheduling, intake, and referrals. This approach allows organizations to scale quickly while maintaining control and consistency.

Can Artera AI agents integrate with our existing EHR?
Yes. Artera integrates with all leading EHRs and digital health tools using secure API, HL7, and FHIR standards. This enables real-time data exchange and smooth workflow execution across your digital ecosystem.

How does Artera prevent AI agents from hallucinating or going off-script?
We combine prompt engineering with tool-based constraints, backend validations, and real-time performance monitoring. Techniques like “LLM-as-a-judge” help us assess agent behavior at scale, ensuring adherence to clinical and operational standards.

How can I start evaluating AI agents for our organization?
Start by identifying high-volume, low-risk workflows that are currently manual, such as appointment scheduling or reminders. Artera’s team can help you assess AI readiness, map your workflows, and develop a safe rollout plan tailored to your compliance, staffing, and tech stack.

The post Beyond the Prompt: Designing Agentic AI for Healthcare Providers That’s Safe, Scalable, and Compliant appeared first on Artera.

As healthcare providers adopt AI-powered tools, the question of data safety moves to the forefront. How do we ensure patient information remains secure while leveraging the speed and efficiency of AI? At Artera, we believe that compliance is not a barrier to innovation but the foundation upon which sustainable healthcare technology is built.

The Evolving Challenge of AI Compliance

Traditional healthcare compliance frameworks were designed for a different era. Regulations like HIPAA established essential ground rules for protecting Protected Health Information (PHI), but they were created long before the rise of generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs).

Today, “agentic AI,” systems that can act independently to perform tasks, introduces new variables into the compliance equation. Unlike static software, AI models learn, adapt, and generate new content. This dynamic nature creates specific risks that standard security assessments might miss if they are only looking at a snapshot in time.

Healthcare leaders must now navigate three critical areas of concern:

Data Containment

This involves ensuring sensitive patient data never leaks into public AI models.

AI systems must be designed so that sensitive patient data, such as names, medical history, insurance information, or clinical notes, never leaks into public or third-party AI models. This risk increases when generative AI tools are trained on large datasets without proper safeguards. To remain HIPAA compliant, all data inputs and outputs must stay within secure, controlled environments. Healthcare organizations need to ensure that vendor platforms maintain full separation between customer data and the models that power the AI.

Spillage Prevention

We prevent data from one patient interaction from crossing over into another.

AI must treat every patient interaction as isolated and confidential. Without strong technical boundaries, AI systems may inadvertently carry information from one patient conversation into another. This kind of data spillage creates significant privacy risks and undermines patient trust. In healthcare settings, even a minor cross-reference of information can result in HIPAA violations or clinical missteps. Preventing this requires strict session isolation and carefully managed context controls at every level of the AI architecture.

Hallucination Mitigation

We also ensure the AI generates accurate, factual responses rather than misleading information.

Addressing these challenges requires a partner who understands that compliance is an active, continuous discipline, not a one-time checkbox.

When an AI model generates inaccurate or fabricated responses, the risk to patients and providers increases. These errors, often referred to as hallucinations, can include incorrect appointment times, misunderstood instructions, or false medical guidance. In healthcare, there is no room for guesswork. Preventing hallucinations involves validating AI outputs against real-time, source-of-truth data, continuously monitoring model behavior, and ensuring that all responses are grounded in verified information.

A Multi-Pillar Approach to AI and Security

Relying on a single certification is no longer sufficient in the age of AI. While frameworks like HITRUST are foundational, they often cannot keep pace with the rapid evolution of AI technologies on their own. That is why Artera employs a comprehensive, multi-layered security strategy.

We view certifications as pieces of a larger puzzle. Each one demonstrates a specific commitment to protecting your organization and the patients you serve.

The Certifications That Matter

To provide complete peace of mind, Artera maintains a robust portfolio of industry-leading certifications:

HITRUST 

This serves as the foundational layer for healthcare compliance, demonstrating our unwavering commitment to safeguarding PHI. 

SOC 2 Type II 

This third-party audit validates our internal controls regarding security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy over an extended period. 

ISO 27001 

The global standard for information security management systems, providing the bedrock for our security operations. 

ISO 27701 

An extension of ISO 27001, this certification specifically covers privacy management, ensuring we handle personal data with the utmost care. 

ISO 27017 & ISO 27018 

These certifications address cloud-specific security and the protection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in cloud environments, respectively.

By maintaining this diverse array of certifications, we ensure that every angle of your data’s security, from general management to specific cloud protocols, is covered.

Pursuing the Highest Standards

Our commitment extends beyond the private sector. Artera is currently pursuing FedRAMP High authorization, one of the most rigorous security baselines available for cloud services. Achieving “in process” status for FedRAMP High signals our dedication to meeting the stringent requirements necessary to handle highly sensitive government data. This pursuit elevates our overall security posture, benefiting all our clients by adhering to the strictest federal protocols.

Tackling AI-Specific Risks Head-On

Certifications validate our infrastructure, but our product engineering directly addresses the unique behaviors of AI. We have designed our platform to mitigate the specific risks associated with agentic AI, ensuring that efficiency never comes at the cost of safety.

1. Ensuring Data Containment

One of the biggest fears regarding AI is the potential for sensitive data to be used to train public models. At Artera, we implement strict Data Loss Prevention (DLP) measures.

We view this as a partnership between technology and people. Our technical controls create a secure environment where sensitive data remains separate from general AI processing. Simultaneously, our workforce undergoes rigorous training on AI best practices, ensuring that the human element of security is just as strong as the digital one.

2. Preventing Data Spillage

In a busy healthcare environment, keeping patient records distinct is critical. AI agents handling multiple conversations must never inadvertently mix data between sessions.

Artera utilizes a Model Context Protocol that creates strict boundaries for every interaction. This protocol dictates exactly what information an AI agent can access at any given moment. It ensures that a conversation with Patient A never accesses, references, or retains data belonging to Patient B. This compartmentalization is vital for maintaining HIPAA compliance in an automated environment.

3. Mitigating Hallucinations

In healthcare, accuracy is not optional. An AI model that “hallucinates,” or invents facts, about appointment times or preparation instructions can have serious consequences for patient care.

To combat this, we employ “Judge LLMs.” These are specialized models tasked with simulating conversations and evaluating our AI agents in real-world scenarios. They test agents, analyze interactions, and score performance to identify potential inaccuracies before they reach a patient. This proactive validation ensures that the information delivered is reliable and safe.

Building a Culture of Security

Technology and certifications are essential, but the true strength of a compliance program lies in the culture of the organization. At Artera, security is a core business principle embedded in everything we do.

Our dedicated Privacy and Security teams oversee the use of all personal information and PHI. They work hand-in-hand with product development to ensure that privacy is “baked in” to our AI products from day one, rather than added as an afterthought. This includes:

• Developing AI-specific internal policies.
• Conducting regular model assessments.
• Maintaining a strict inventory of all AI models in use.
• Encrypting data both in transit and at rest.
• Implementing role-based access controls so only authorized personnel can access sensitive data.

We also extend this scrutiny to our partners. Customer data is never shared with unaffiliated third parties—only with vetted vendors who have signed comprehensive contracts related to security and privacy.

Trustworthy AI Compliance in Healthcare: Secure Partnerships that Scale

As the healthcare industry continues to leverage AI, the landscape of compliance will inevitably shift. New threats will emerge, and regulations will evolve. This future requires a partner who is not just keeping up but setting the pace.

Healthcare providers need vendors who prioritize a “defense in depth” strategy, combining traditional certifications like HITRUST with innovative, AI-specific safeguards. By choosing a partner committed to transparency and continuous improvement, you protect your organization’s reputation and, most importantly, your patients’ trust.

At Artera, we are dedicated to making healthcare number one in customer service without compromising on safety. If you are ready to see how secure, compliant AI can transform your patient communications, we invite you to learn more about our commitment to trust.

Visit the Artera Trust Center to see how we protect what matters most.

The post AI in Healthcare Compliance: How Artera is Setting the Standard appeared first on Artera.

The patient communications landscape is undergoing its most profound transformation yet: the shift to Agentic AI.

This isn’t just about automation; it’s about creating intelligent, autonomous systems that can manage complex workflows and interact with patients in a more human-like way.

For the past decade, Artera has been at the forefront of this evolution, from spearheading text messaging in healthcare to leading the charge in AI-driven automation. Today, we are positioned to once again redefine the industry we helped create.

We’re excited to announce that Artera has secured a $65 million growth investment, a milestone that will accelerate the adoption of Agentic AI in healthcare. This growth investment is a powerful vote of confidence in our vision, our technology, and our team.

This is more than just a financial milestone. It’s a strategic move to double down on our mission to fix patient communications by combining the best of human and AI agent intelligence.

The Scale of Our Impact in Healthcare Communications

Our leadership isn’t a recent development; it’s been built over a decade of dedication and trust. We have become the backbone of patient communication for many of the nation’s leading healthcare providers. 

Our scale is a testament to the trust the market places in us:

• Extensive Reach: We are a trusted partner to over 1,000 provider organizations, including specialty groups, FQHCs, large health systems, and federal agencies.
• Massive Engagement: Our platform facilitates more than two billion patient-provider communications annually, having engaged over 200 million unique patients.
• Deep EHR Integration: We are the “white-labeled” communications solution for major EHRs, including Oracle Health’s Unified Consumer Communications and MEDITECH’s Expanse Patient Connect.
• Trusted by Government: Artera is a leading provider of federal agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, and Indian Health Service.
• Unmatched Security: Our platform meets the highest industry standards, with SOC 2 Type 2 and HITRUST certifications, HIPAA compliance, and a FedRAMP High “in process” status.

Our CEO and Co-Founder, Guillaume de Zwirek, often says the race to leverage Agentic AI in healthcare will not be won with technology alone. Success requires a combination of technology, real-world knowledge, and established distribution. Artera is one of the few companies that possesses all three, giving us a defensible competitive advantage. This new funding allows us to extend that lead.

Our Strategic Investment Priorities

The growth investment is for targeted, strategic acceleration of agentic AI. We are allocating these funds to three key areas:

Resources to Accelerate Customer Education

We recognize that the rise of agentic AI represents a massive technological shift impacting healthcare. With over 1,000 customers, we are committed to acting as their essential partner in navigating this change. We are investing heavily in comprehensive customer education and training; not only focused on our specific solutions but also on the broader principles of agentic AI. This strategic education ensures our partners are knowledgeable on the technology, enabling the safe, quick, and responsible deployment of our tools. By empowering teams with this foundational knowledge, we collectively accelerate the path to improved patient experiences and operational transformation.

Brand Awareness Around Agentic Solutions

We strive to solidify Artera’s position as the recognized leader in agentic AI for patient communications. We will tell our story more broadly, showcasing our best-in-breed technology and expert team to help providers successfully navigate this new landscape. This leadership is evidenced by our 1,000 customers, who rely on the Artera platform to deliver tangible ROI by improving patient access, reducing staff burden, and dramatically enhancing the overall patient experience.

Enhancing Our Best of Breed AI Platform & Solution Suite

Innovation is our lifeblood. Artera will funnel resources into our technical capacity to further accelerate the development of our core platform and AI solutions. This means expanding our investment in the underlying infrastructure needed to build, train, and deploy more sophisticated AI Agents, in addition to expanding our integration with a diverse range of EHRs. The goal is to enhance our platform’s intelligence and expand its capabilities to solve even more complex administrative and clinical workflows.

From Co-Pilots to Autonomous AI Agents

Our virtual agent suite already delivers significant results for healthcare providers, actively fixing patient access challenges today.

• Harmony Co-Pilots: Currently used by over 100 healthcare providers, these tools support staff by accelerating response times, generating conversation summaries, and automating message shortening, saving valuable administrative time.
• Flows Agents: These intelligent, rules-based agents manage over 42 million unique sessions annually, successfully completing 94% of conversations without any staff intervention.
• AI Agents: Fully autonomous AI Agents can support the entire care journey, from the initial phone call to post-discharge follow-up.

Together, these tools have already saved millions of staff hours, proving that the synergy between humans and agents is the key to unlocking massive efficiency gains.

Why Agentic AI in Healthcare Requires Real-World Knowledge

Building effective AI agents is rapidly becoming commoditized. What cannot be replicated overnight is the deep, domain-specific knowledge required to make them work in a complex and highly regulated environment like healthcare.

“The race to leverage agentic AI in healthcare will not be won with technology alone; building AI agents is quickly becoming commoditized,” said Guillaume de Zwirek, CEO and co-founder of Artera in a recent Fierce Healthcare article. “Success requires technology paired with deep domain experience, extensive real-world data and distribution channels that allow for quick and easy activation. Artera has all three, which provides an essential and defensible competitive moat.”

Our mission since inception has been to provide every patient with a best-in-class experience. This new chapter, powered by our recent growth investment and our deep industry knowledge, brings us closer to that reality than ever before. We are not just participating in the Agentic AI revolution; we are leading it.

• Hear Artera’s AI Agents in Action
• Learn more in our blog series: Decoding AI Agents for Healthcare

Forward-looking statements: These statements are based on current information and are subject to change without notice. They may not be accurate or reliable, and actual events may differ from those projected. Artera is not responsible for the correctness, completeness, or accuracy of the statements made herein. Any claims for damages based on this content are hereby excluded. Artera reserves the right to make changes without notice in design, specifications, and models.

The post Powering the Future: Artera’s $65M Growth Investment to Drive Breakthroughs in Agentic AI for Healthcare appeared first on Artera.

In fact, more than 70% of call volume across Artera’s customer base involves common administrative tasks like confirming, canceling, rescheduling, or routing appointments between departments. These are not complex clinical conversations; they’re routine tasks that can be handled more efficiently and more consistently through AI-powered virtual agents.

This is where AI medical answering services come into play.

And while the term “AI medical answering service” may sound like a futuristic version of a call center script, what it actually represents is a powerful shift in healthcare communications. One that blends automation, artificial intelligence, and human support to create faster, safer, and more satisfying patient experiences without putting more burden on overwhelmed front desk staff.

Let’s dig in.

Defining AI Medical Answering Services

An AI medical answering service uses artificial intelligence to handle patient calls 24/7. It automates routine tasks such as appointment scheduling, billing inquiries, prescription refills, and triage support. These systems use Natural Language Processing (NLP) and intelligent virtual assistant technology to recognize what patients are asking, even when they use natural, conversational language.

Unlike traditional answering services that forward calls to human operators or place patients on long holds, AI medical answering services respond instantly at any time of day. They follow consistent protocols and integrate directly with healthcare systems to streamline patient communication.

That doesn’t mean truly effective AI medical answering services remove humans from the process. In fact, the most effective solutions are designed with a “human-in-the-loop” model. AI handles the repetitive and rules-based requests that can be automated safely, and when a situation requires human oversight, empathy, or clinical insight, the system seamlessly escalates to staff. This ensures patients get fast, accurate support without sacrificing safety, compliance, or human connection.

This hybrid approach to AI Medical Answering Services delivers powerful advantages.

Key Features and Benefits of AI Medical Answering Services

24/7 Availability Without Increasing Staff Headcount

AI medical answering services never sleep. They operate continuously, providing instant responses to patients around the clock. Whether it’s after-hours or during a holiday, patients can reach out at any time and still receive accurate, timely support. This ensures no opportunities are lost due to missed calls and eliminates the need to hire additional staff for extended coverage.

First-Call Resolution for Most Routine Interactions

By understanding natural language and following intelligent workflows, AI answering services can resolve the majority of administrative inquiries without needing to escalate. Whether it’s confirming an appointment, providing a clinic address, or answering a billing question, patients receive clear, helpful answers on the first call, without being transferred or placed on hold.

Lower Call Center Burden and Less Administrative Burnout

By offloading the repetitive and time-consuming interactions that dominate phone lines, AI virtual agents free up human staff to focus on complex or sensitive cases that require their expertise. This shift reduces call volumes, improves operational efficiency, and helps alleviate burnout among front desk and administrative teams who are often overwhelmed by routine tasks.

Improved Patient Satisfaction Through Faster, More Consistent Responses

Patients don’t like waiting. When they can get immediate answers without sitting on hold or navigating phone trees, their satisfaction improves dramatically. AI agents ensure every patient receives fast, consistent communication, which builds trust and improves the overall experience across the care journey.

HIPAA-Compliant Voice and Chat Support Integrated with Existing EHR and Scheduling Systems

Security is non-negotiable in healthcare. High-performing AI answering services meet stringent compliance standards, including HIPAA, SOC 2 Type 2, and HITRUST. These systems integrate directly with existing tools like EHRs and scheduling platforms, ensuring sensitive information stays protected and communication remains centralized.

Intelligent Triage and Escalation Using Symptom Assessment Protocols

Not all calls are routine. AI systems can recognize urgency based on patient language and predefined symptom indicators. When red flags appear, such as mentions of pain, confusion, or emergency scenarios, the system escalates to a human immediately, along with a full summary, so the handoff is smooth and the response is timely.

Routine Task Automation Including Appointment Changes, Billing Questions, Prescription Refills, Directions, and FAQs

Tasks that once took minutes of staff time, or worse, went unresolved, can now be completed in seconds. AI answering services handle appointment rescheduling, send payment links, answer insurance questions, and direct patients to the nearest pharmacy or entrance. The system is always on and always consistent.

Multilingual Support to Improve Access for Diverse Patient Populations

Many AI medical answering services are equipped to operate in multiple languages, including Spanish, Mandarin, and others, ensuring patients can engage in the language they are most comfortable with. This improves accessibility, helps close equity gaps in healthcare communication, and reduces misunderstandings that can delay care.

Seamless Integration with EHR and Practice Management Systems to Ensure Real-Time Data Syncing

AI systems are only as good as their ability to plug into your current tech stack. Modern AI answering services sync in real time with your EHR, practice management system, and scheduling tools, allowing for immediate data updates, smarter workflows, and no duplication of work. No massive IT projects or rip-and-replace headaches required.

Cost-Effectiveness by Handling High Call Volumes and Reducing Reliance on Traditional Call Center Staffing

Staffing large call centers is expensive. AI medical answering services significantly reduce the need for human agents on every call, cutting operational costs while improving service levels. By automating what can be automated and routing the rest more efficiently, healthcare providers can do more with less, without sacrificing patient care quality.

But not all AI medical answering services are created equal. Many are limited to basic FAQs or rigid scripts. The most advanced platforms offer flexible pathways that support both rules-based automation and intelligent, agentic behavior, allowing providers to tailor the experience to their operational needs and patient expectations.

Understanding the difference between basic media answering services and Agentic AI is key to choosing the right solution and scaling responsibly.

From Flows to Full Autonomy: The Spectrum of AI in Healthcare and Its Impact on Patient Communication

As health systems evaluate AI answering services, many assume the ultimate goal is a fully autonomous, conversational AI that can manage most patient communication without human involvement. That assumption is understandable, especially amid rising interest in generative AI and large language models.

However, it can lead to two costly missteps:

1. Overpromising what today’s AI can safely and consistently deliver at scale, particularly within highly regulated healthcare environments
   
2. Overwhelming internal teams with technologies that require more governance, monitoring, and integration maturity than they are ready to support

Artera offers a pragmatic, purpose-built alternative. Rather than forcing organizations to leap into high-risk deployments, Artera introduces a spectrum of AI maturity that starts with deterministic automation and evolves into adaptive, agentic intelligence. 

This lets organizations move forward responsibly, maintaining compliance and control while achieving tangible operational results.

What Are Flows Agents?

Flows Agents are Artera’s intelligent, rules-based virtual agents designed to automate routine workflows through structured, pre-configured decision trees. 

These agents follow deterministic logic: if a patient expresses a specific intent, the system follows a predefined pathway to address it.

This rules-based framework gives healthcare teams the ability to automate administrative conversations without needing engineering resources, custom code, or complex training. Flows Agents are built with guardrails that ensure safe, accurate, and repeatable execution across thousands of interactions.

How Flows Agents Work in Practice:

• A patient texts, “Where do I park for my appointment?” The Flows Agent detects the location, matches the query to the right response, and replies with specific parking instructions.
  
• A patient says, “I need to reschedule my appointment.” The Flows Agent checks eligibility and availability, then presents new time slots based on scheduling rules.
  
• A patient shares, “My leg still hurts after surgery. Should I be concerned?” Recognizing the clinical risk, the Flows Agent escalates to staff immediately, accompanied by a full conversation summary.
  

This approach is highly effective for managing the over 70% of call volume that consists of routine, rules-based interactions. It eliminates manual effort, reduces errors, and ensures patients receive fast, accurate responses without overwhelming staff.Just as important, Flows Agents never operate outside their scope. If a query exceeds the available workflows, it is escalated to a human team member. There are no hallucinations, improvisations, or unvalidated answers.

Real-World Results: Artera’s Flows Agents in Action

Artera’s Flows Agents are already delivering measurable impact across the healthcare industry. These intelligent, rules-based virtual agents are automating millions of conversations annually, streamlining care access, and giving time back to staff.

To date, Artera Flows Agents have facilitated more than 42 million unique patient sessions across 135 healthcare organizations, with 94 percent of those interactions completed without any staff intervention. 

This has resulted in over 250,000 staff hours saved each year. That time is now being redirected toward more meaningful patient care and operational priorities.

This is not theoretical. It is happening in real healthcare settings today.

High-Impact Use Cases Across the Patient Journey

With more than 1,000 distinct Flows in deployment, healthcare providers are using Artera Flows Agents to automate communication across a wide range of workflows. Common use cases include:

Appointments

Confirmations, rescheduling, cancellations, and pre-visit instructions help reduce no-shows and alleviate pressure on front desk teams.

Patient Forms

Automated delivery and collection of satisfaction surveys, intake forms, and post-discharge check-ins help streamline documentation and follow-up.

Financial Communications

Secure messaging related to bills, copays, and claims improves transparency and supports faster patient payments.

Clinical Notifications

Reminders, test results, care gap outreach, and discharge instructions help improve outcomes and close gaps in care.

Support Requests

Answers to common questions like parking, directions, prescription refills, and password resets improve patient access and reduce unnecessary staff workload.

These workflows can be powered by the Artera Template Library, which includes more than 70 prebuilt templates.

Healthcare teams can quickly select, duplicate, and customize templates to match their unique needs, patient populations, and clinical goals. Or they can start from scratch and build their own.

Templates include workflows for colonoscopy scheduling, copay collection, chronic care management, vaccine outreach, appointment preparation, prescription follow-up, and more.

Automation That Delivers Without Sacrificing Safety

Every Flows Agent interaction follows a deterministic, rules-based structure. This means that interactions are consistent, auditable, and safe. 

When a request falls outside the defined workflow, the system immediately escalates to a human with full conversation context. This ensures that automation never replaces human judgment when it matters most.

Artera customers benefit from:

• Clear boundaries for AI automation that prevent errors or hallucinated responses
  
• Built-in compliance with HIPAA, HITRUST, and SOC 2 Type 2
  
• Full audit trails for every patient interaction and staff intervention

Flows Agents also allow customization through Smart Phrases, internal @mentions, and simple editing tools that let healthcare teams adjust tone, language, and messaging based on appointment type, location, department, or demographics.

Scalable, Personalized, and Built for Growth

Flows Agents can be triggered by keywords, EHR status changes, or other clinical indicators. Whether it’s a single reminder or a multi-step conversation over several days, Artera enables organizations to:

• Build once and deploy across thousands of interactions
  
• Measure drop-off points and completion rates in real time
  
• Optimize based on outcomes and improve engagement over time
  
• Personalize messaging at scale without adding tech burden

Why AI Medical Answering Services Matter Right Now

1. After-Hours Coverage Remains a Universal Challenge

Missed calls during nights, weekends, or peak demand hours lead to delayed care, lost revenue, and patient dissatisfaction. Traditional call centers are expensive to scale and can’t always meet demand.

AI-powered answering services provide immediate, consistent support at any hour. Patients get the help they need, without waiting for the office to open or navigating confusing menus.

2. Front Desk Teams Are Overextended

Staff are overwhelmed with repetitive administrative work that distracts from patient-facing priorities. AI answering services offload common tasks such as appointment confirmations, billing FAQs, and rescheduling requests. This lets your team focus on complex needs that require their skill and attention.

3. Call Abandonment Undermines Access and Experience

Long wait times and dropped calls can compromise a patient’s decision to seek care. HIPAA-compliant virtual agents reduce hold times, ensure quick routing, and help eliminate bottlenecks in your communication workflow.

Core Capabilities of a High-Performing AI Medical Answering Service

When evaluating platforms, look for solutions that offer:

• 24/7 Availability to ensure patients can connect any time
  
• Automated Triage to identify urgent concerns and escalate appropriately
  
• Routine Task Automation to manage scheduling, billing, directions, and other FAQs
  
• Seamless Integration with your EHR and engagement tools
  
• HIPAA Compliance and proven security frameworks
  
• Human-in-the-Loop Escalation to ensure safety, empathy, and clinical accuracy

How Artera Powers AI Answering Services with Human Intelligence

Artera’s platform is built to extend human expertise, not replace it. Our AI operates within the limits of safety, protocol, and compliance, and always includes a clear path to human escalation.

Artera Flows Agents

• Automate structured conversations with minimal development effort
  
• Use Natural Language Understanding to interpret patient messages
  
• Allow staff to jump in at any time using @mentions
  
• Adapt over time based on real-world interaction data
  

Artera Smart Routing

• Directs inquiries to the right team without bouncing between departments
  
• Personalizes communication based on known preferences
  
• Eliminates transfer loops and reduces administrative waste

Artera Inbox and HIPAA AI Voice

• Provide secure, centralized communication via voice or text
  
• Allow asynchronous follow-up and reminders
  
• Log all interactions without exposing sensitive patient data in training
  

Impact to Date:

• 200 million unique patient sessions
  
• Thousands of staff hours saved annually
  
• Significant reductions in missed appointments and care gaps

AI Medical Answering Services vs. Chatbots

Too often, static chatbots are mistaken for modern AI answering solutions. The reality is that most basic chatbots are limited to scripted answers and cannot initiate actions, route care, or integrate with clinical systems.

Artera’s virtual agents go well beyond surface-level automation. They manage full workflows, handle complex interactions, escalate when needed, and operate within healthcare’s unique compliance landscape.

They don’t just chat. They create action. 

The Future Is Hybrid: AI and Human Together

Artera believes in a hybrid future where AI and human teams operate in tandem. Flows Agents and Agentic AI are not competing technologies. They are complementary, each suited to specific workflows and stages of maturity.

• Flows Agents offer quick deployment, reliable execution, and safety at scale
  
• Agentic AI supports dynamic, cross-functional decision-making across the care journey

In this model, staff are no longer tied up in rescheduling appointments or explaining directions. They are freed to focus on what only humans can do: deliver compassion, clinical insight, and care.

How Artera Supports Your Transition to Agentic AI

Adopting AI shouldn’t mean disrupting your workflows or rebuilding your systems from scratch. Artera’s modular architecture supports a staged approach to AI maturity.

Step 1: Start with Co-Pilots
Support your staff with automatic translation, message shortening, conversation summaries and much more.

Step 2: Extend with Flows Agents
Deploy automation for high-volume, low-risk interactions. Gain immediate efficiency without requiring technical resources.

Every layer builds on the last. That’s what makes Artera a true strategic partner, not just a vendor, but an engine for sustainable transformation.

We believe agentic intelligence must be safe, observable, and rooted in healthcare workflows, and that’s exactly what we’ve built.

Ready to Enhance Patient Access?

Artera offers healthcare organizations a secure, scalable, and fully integrated AI answering solution built specifically for your needs. Whether you’re just getting started with Flows or ready to explore Agentic AI, we’ll help you find the right path.

• Book a demo of Artera’s AI Answering Service
  
• Learn about how our AI solutions can benefit your operations
  
• Explore HIPAA-ready virtual assistants that elevate your patient experience

The post What Are AI Medical Answering Services? A Good Start… appeared first on Artera.

First Call Resolution (FCR) is a vital performance metric in healthcare contact centers.

The industry benchmark for FCR typically falls between 70 and 79% percent, but many healthcare organizations struggle to consistently meet that threshold.

It measures whether a patient’s issue is successfully resolved during the first interaction, without the need for follow-up, transfer, or escalation. A high FCR rate leads to shorter wait times, fewer handoffs, and a more positive experience for both patients and staff.

In a healthcare environment already dealing with rising call volumes, staffing limitations, and complex workflows, improving FCR is not just a customer service improvement. It directly impacts operational efficiency, cost savings, staff morale, and overall patient satisfaction

One of the most effective ways to improve FCR in healthcare today is through AI agents designed to understand context, route intelligently, and resolve issues quickly.

Common causes of poor FCR include agents lacking the right information, patients getting disconnected while on hold, being routed to the wrong department, or calling back because the issue wasn’t truly resolved the first time.

Key Reasons FCR Is Critical in Healthcare

Patient Satisfaction and Loyalty
Patients expect quick, accurate solutions. Resolving concerns on the first call reduces stress, builds trust, and increases the likelihood they will continue with your organization.

Reduced Operational Costs
Every repeat call increases staffing demands and overhead. Higher FCR rates reduce overall call volume and limit resource waste.

Improved Patient Retention
Patients who experience frustration or delays are more likely to seek care elsewhere. A seamless resolution experience keeps them engaged and loyal.

Enhanced Agent Morale and Productivity
Agents feel more confident and fulfilled when they resolve issues without escalation.

AI can also support agent training by surfacing live call insights, analyzing past interactions, and helping supervisors coach in real time using transcripts, sentiment data, and guided resolution paths.

This reduces burnout and improves day-to-day performance.

Actionable Insights from Repeat Call Patterns
Identifying why issues require multiple touches allows teams to uncover process gaps and improve workflows.

Stronger Brand and Service Reputation
Consistently resolving patient issues on the first call reflects high-quality service and improves your standing in the healthcare market.

The Pain of Traditional Contact Centers

Traditional healthcare contact centers struggle to keep up. Long hold times, limited staffing, and outdated tools leave patients waiting and agents overwhelmed.

• Burnout and turnover are the top inefficiency sources for healthcare call centers, with 39% of leaders citing them as their biggest operational challenge.
• Healthcare call centers experience an average hold time of 4.4 minutes, far exceeding the industry benchmark of 50 seconds.
• At least 60% of patients abandon calls after waiting more than one minute.

These challenges are worsened by siloed systems, outdated technology, and the manual nature of routine calls.

That is where agentic AI comes in.

How AI Agents Improve First Call Resolution

At Artera, we take a holistic approach to patient communication. Our AI agents are designed to support resolution from the first touchpoint—whether through automation, guidance, or smart routing.

Here are seven ways AI agents improve First Call Resolution, with real examples to show the impact.

1. Instant Responses, 24/7

AI agents provide always-on support, answering common questions without making patients wait on hold.

Examples:

• A patient calls at 9 PM to ask about clinic hours. The AI agent responds instantly with accurate information.
  
• Someone texts to check the location of their appointment. The AI replies with a verified address and parking instructions.
  
• A voice agent confirms an upcoming appointment and offers self-service options for rescheduling.
  

Why it improves FCR: Immediate answers prevent unnecessary callbacks and help patients resolve needs on the first contact.

2. Automated Self-Service

Artera’s AI agents can handle routine tasks, without staff involvement.

Examples:

• A patient uses text to refill a prescription. The agent verifies eligibility and sends confirmation.
  
• During a phone call, the AI schedules a follow-up appointment using real-time availability from the EHR.
  
• The system handles billing FAQs by directing the patient to the correct payment portal and confirming balances.
  

Why it improves FCR: These tasks are resolved automatically, eliminating wait times and freeing up agents for complex cases.

3. Real-Time Support

Not every issue can be solved by automation. For those that require a human touch, humans can step in to assist staff in real-time.

Examples:

• An agent is handling a medication inquiry. Artera surfaces the latest refill history from the EHR and suggests follow-up questions.
  
• A confused patient expresses concern about a test result. The Co-Pilot recommends empathetic phrasing based on sentiment detection.
  
• A new staff member handling a billing call is shown step-by-step resolution logic mid-conversation.
  

Why it improves FCR: Agents are empowered to resolve complex issues faster, with higher confidence and fewer escalations.

4. Intelligent Call Routing

Getting patients to the right place the first time is key to improving FCR.

Examples:

• A voice agent detects that the caller needs to discuss a referral. It routes them to the care coordination team, not general intake.
  
• NLP detects “medication issue” in a voicemail and flags it for pharmacy staff, not billing.
  
• A call about a denied claim is directed immediately to the revenue cycle support team.
  

Why it improves FCR: Smart routing prevents call bouncing, minimizes transfers, and reduces handling time.

5. Contextual Personalization

Artera’s AI agents are context-aware. They adapt based on patient history, preferences, and past interactions.

Examples:

• A patient who missed an appointment is proactively offered the next available opening with their preferred provider.
  
• A returning caller is greeted by name and provided quick status on a pending referral.
  

The system remembers preferred contact method (voice over SMS) and uses it automatically.

Why it improves FCR: Context reduces repetition and makes patients feel seen, leading to faster, more accurate resolutions.

6. Sentiment Awareness

Agentic AI can interpret tone and emotion during calls or messages.

Examples:

• A patient sounds frustrated. The system alerts the agent and recommends an empathetic response.
  
• Negative sentiment is detected in a voicemail. The call is prioritized for immediate human follow-up.
  
• During a long call, increasing stress is flagged and surfaced for supervisory review.
  

Why it improves FCR: Responding to emotion builds trust and helps resolve concerns before they escalate.

7. Automated Follow-Up

Resolution does not always stop at the end of the call. AI can ensure issues stay resolved.

Examples:

• A text is sent confirming an appointment reschedule right after the call.
  
• A survey checks if the billing question was resolved, triggering a staff alert if not.
  
• A prescription refill confirmation includes a link to request more information if needed.
  

Why it improves FCR: Proactive communication closes the loop, reducing the chance of repeat calls.

Benefits for Healthcare Organizations

AI agents do more than speed up conversations. They create meaningful impact across clinical operations, patient experience, and operational efficiency. From cost savings to staff satisfaction, the benefits of AI-powered communication systems extend far beyond automation.

Reduced Costs

AI agents help healthcare organizations control costs by minimizing repeat calls, shortening average handle time, and eliminating manual processes that typically require additional staff.

Instead of hiring more agents to manage growing call volumes, AI scales instantly to meet demand. Tasks like appointment confirmations, billing questions, and form collection are handled automatically, allowing your team to redirect time and resources toward higher-value work.

By reducing the number of touchpoints per issue and streamlining resolution, organizations can achieve measurable ROI without sacrificing care quality.

Happier Patients

When patients receive fast, clear answers without navigating long menus or being passed between departments, trust grows. AI agents improve the patient experience by offering real-time support, easy-to-understand language, and personalized responses.

Whether a patient needs to check lab hours, reschedule an appointment, or request a refill, AI can resolve the request immediately or direct it to the right team. This eliminates common frustrations like long hold times, repeated information, or missed messages.

The result is more engaged patients who feel supported and valued throughout their care journey. With less time spent on repetitive tasks, staff can use calls as opportunities to educate patients about follow-up care, preventive screenings, and treatment options. This leads to stronger relationships and better long-term outcomes.

Empowered Staff

AI does not replace human expertise. It supports it. By handling repetitive and routine interactions, AI agents give your staff more time to focus on complex, high-touch conversations that require empathy and clinical understanding.

Agents are no longer overwhelmed by low-value inquiries. Instead, they can deliver better service, engage more meaningfully with patients, and work in a less stressful environment.

This improves job satisfaction, reduces burnout, and lowers turnover. With attrition rates high across healthcare call centers, reducing low-value work helps organizations retain experienced staff and avoid the cost of constant rehiring and retraining. As a result, healthcare organizations are better equipped to retain skilled professionals and strengthen their teams over time.

Artera AI Agents: Designed for First Call Resolution

Artera’s platform brings together three powerful types of agents to support better outcomes.

AI Agents (Voice and Text)

These agents handle complete workflows across multiple channels. Whether a patient needs to schedule an appointment, follow up on a billing question, or respond to a care gap reminder, AI Agents manage the process in real time from start to finish. They work independently, understand natural language, and access relevant systems like the EHR to complete tasks without human input.

These agents are especially useful in reducing wait times, eliminating bottlenecks, and increasing the number of patient issues resolved on the first attempt. They also escalate complex or sensitive matters when needed, ensuring safety and compliance at every step.

Flows Agents

Flows Agents are structured, rules-based virtual assistants that manage high-volume, low-variation interactions with precision. From sending appointment reminders and collecting forms to delivering pre-visit instructions or answering FAQs, they execute well-defined tasks at scale with zero deviation from their intended behavior. Because Flows Agents follow logic trees instead of generative language, they are highly predictable and trusted for workflows where compliance, accuracy, and speed are critical. They are often the ideal starting point for healthcare organizations beginning their AI journey.

Harmony Co-Pilot Agents

Harmony Co-Pilot Agents act as intelligent assistants for your frontline staff. During live conversations, they surface real-time insights such as sentiment analysis, conversation summaries and message classification. They also offer smart suggestions, sentence rewrites, and translation tools to help agents communicate clearly and efficiently across multiple languages and channels.

By reducing manual lookups and guesswork, Co-Pilot Agents accelerate time to resolution, reduce stress for staff, and ensure patients feel heard and understood. These tools are especially helpful in fast-paced environments like contact centers or care coordination teams.

All three work together across voice and text. The platform supports true omni-channel engagement. Patients can connect using the method that suits them best, such as phone or text message. AI agents maintain context and consistency across each channel to ensure a seamless experience. Built on Artera’s privacy-first infrastructure, our agents integrate with your EHR, support omnichannel communication, and follow healthcare-grade security protocols.

Smarter Service for Your Patients

If your contact center is overwhelmed, your patients are waiting, or your agents are overburdened, now is the time to evolve.

With Artera, you do not have to overhaul everything. Start small. Scale fast. Improve First Call Resolution with the only AI platform built from the ground up for healthcare communication.

Ready to Resolve More on the First Call?

• Reduce call volume without reducing quality
• Route smarter, respond faster, resolve fully
• Partner with a platform that grows with your needs
  

Book a walkthrough of Artera’s intelligent FCR solutions today.

The post First Call Resolution in Healthcare: How AI Agents Improve It appeared first on Artera.

As part of a new generation of AI agents for healthcare, Flows Agents bridge automation and empathy, helping organizations manage increasing patient expectations without sacrificing personalization.

As intelligent, rules-based virtual agents, Artera Flows Agents offer a strategic approach, automating routine workflows while keeping healthcare teams in control. More than just an automation tool, Flows Agents are the essential first step toward fully autonomous AI in healthcare, providing a proven pathway to transform patient engagement and operational efficiency.

This technology addresses the fundamental tension between personalization and scale in healthcare. Leveraging natural language understanding and deterministic pathways, Flows Agents enable consistent, high-quality patient interactions across thousands of daily touchpoints.

Transforming Healthcare Through Intelligent Agentic Solutions for Automation

Artera Flows Agents deliver measurable impact across healthcare organizations through their unique combination of artificial intelligence and human oversight. These virtual agents handle the complexity of patient communication while ensuring staff remain involved in critical decision-making.

These healthcare virtual agents go beyond simple automation, addressing first-call resolution challenges and workflow gaps that impact patient experience and staff productivity across modern healthcare systems.

Proven Performance at Scale

The numbers speak to the transformative potential of this technology. Healthcare organizations using Flows Agents report 94% of conversations completed successfully without staff intervention, while processing over 10 million unique sessions annually. This level of automation translates to more than 50,000 hours of staff time saved each year, which can be redirected toward direct patient care.

This level of performance underscores why Artera Flows Agents are considered among the best AI agents for healthcare, delivering measurable ROI and scalable automation for leading health systems.

Built for Healthcare’s Unique Requirements

Flows Agents are purpose-built for healthcare environments, incorporating natural language understanding to accurately interpret patient responses and deterministic pathways to ensure conversations follow evidence-based protocols. The human-in-the-loop functionality allows staff to seamlessly enter conversations when needed, maintaining the personal connection that defines quality healthcare.

Flow Agents also have strategic benefits to Artera. According to Artera CEO Guillaume de Zwirek, “It’s a definitive knowledge base of proven pathways that have been hardened over many years across hundreds of institutions and for millions of patients. This knowledge repository is an incredibly useful tool for training fully autonomous agents.”

“Healthcare is a highly regulated industry, where technology, especially autonomous AI, can have life and death implications. Flows uses deterministic logic, with natural language understanding (NLU), to guide patients through the specific automated journey. These pathways have no risk for hallucination and jailbreaking, and help build initial comfort in AI for healthcare leadership, and a glidepath to autonomy, our AI Agents product.”

-Guillaume de Zwirek, CEO of Artera

Real-World Applications of Flows Agents Across Healthcare Workflows

These AI agents in healthcare streamline communication across every patient journey stage, from intake and scheduling to feedback and reputation management, improving operational consistency.

The versatility of Flows Agents becomes apparent when examining their deployment across different healthcare functions. Organizations are leveraging this technology to automate everything from appointment scheduling to care gap closure, with each implementation delivering specific operational benefits.

Federally qualified health centers are even using Artera’s AI solutions to increase patient access, “from coordinating transportation and delivering coats, to providing critical support for victims of domestic violence,” de Zwirek said.

This comprehensive coverage allows healthcare systems to implement automation strategically, starting with high-impact use cases and expanding based on demonstrated success. Below are some stories from our customers, showcasing unique ways they are utilizing Flows Agents.

Closing Care Gaps: A Success Story in Population Health

Beauregard Health System‘s implementation of Flows Agents demonstrates the technology’s potential to transform population health outcomes. Confronted with consistently low conversion rates for preventive health screenings, the organization deployed these automated workflows for mammography and colorectal cancer screening outreach.

The campaign demonstrates how coordinated AI agents for advancing healthcare can improve outcomes while reducing staff workload.

Rapid Implementation, Immediate Impact

Within just six weeks, Beauregard moved from concept to full deployment of comprehensive screening campaigns. Nicole Clanton, Population Health Coordinator, led the initiative by collaborating with seven primary care providers to create tailored workflows that combined educational content with scheduling automation.

The impact was substantial: 18% gap closure in mammogram screenings and 13% gap closure in colorectal screenings within just two months. Equally important, the organization reduced call time from 5-10 minutes per patient to just 30 seconds, saving two weeks of staff time that could be redirected toward direct patient care.

“From conception to deployment, these campaigns came together so quickly – it really is so easy to learn Conversation Flows!” Clanton noted.

Reputation Management Through Automated Excellence

Newton Clinic‘s experience illustrates how Flows Agents can address challenges beyond clinical workflows. Struggling with a 2.3-star Google rating that failed to reflect their quality of care, the clinic implemented an automated post-visit survey system that strategically channeled patient feedback.

Strategic Feedback Management

The Flows Agents workflow automatically sent satisfaction surveys to patients following appointments. Those rating their experience highly (4-5 stars) received thank you messages with direct links to leave Google reviews, while patients indicating dissatisfaction (1-2 stars) were connected with managers for immediate follow-up.

This approach generated over 60 new positive reviews within four months, boosting the clinic’s rating from 2.3 to 3.5 stars, a 52% improvement. More importantly, patients appreciated the opportunity to provide feedback, enhancing their overall experience with the organization.

Scaling Operations Through Intelligent Automation

United Health Centers of the San Joaquin Valley faced the challenge of managing patient interactions across 200,000+ patients through its centralized call center. With only 37% of calls converting to appointments, the organization needed a solution that could improve efficiency and patient experience.

Transforming Patient Access

By implementing Flows Agents, UHC created automated workflows for appointment scheduling, rescheduling, and patient navigation. The system collected approximately 80% of necessary appointment information through automated conversations before connecting patients with staff members.

The transformation was remarkable: appointment conversion rates increased to 77%, more than double their phone-based success rate. The organization now manages 17,000 patients monthly with just five agents, compared to 5,000 patients previously, while maintaining 99% response rates within one hour.

Humberto Cafaggi Alvarez, Central Operations Director, emphasized the broader impact: “The effectiveness of Flows is remarkable—not only does this approach streamline operations, but it also significantly boosts revenue.”

The Strategic Path to Autonomous AI in Heathcare

Flows Agents represent more than operational efficiency; they are coordinated AI agents for advancing healthcare, providing organizations with a trusted foundation for autonomous AI adoption. This intentional design addresses the unique challenges of bringing artificial intelligence into healthcare, balancing innovation with the safety, reliability, and human oversight the industry demands.

Building Confidence Through Proven Pathways

Healthcare operates in a highly regulated environment where technology decisions carry significant implications. Flows Agents use deterministic logic with natural language understanding, eliminating risks associated with AI hallucination or unpredictable responses. These proven pathways, refined across hundreds of institutions and millions of patient interactions, create a knowledge repository that informs future autonomous AI development.

Gradual Progression Toward Autonomy

The platform serves as a stepping stone, allowing healthcare leaders to build confidence in AI capabilities while maintaining necessary oversight. As organizations become comfortable with automated workflows and observe consistent positive outcomes, they develop the institutional knowledge and trust needed for more autonomous AI implementations.

This approach acknowledges that healthcare transformation requires careful, evidence-based progression rather than dramatic technological leaps.

Implementation Strategy for Health Systems

Successful deployment of Flows Agents requires strategic planning that aligns with organizational priorities and workflow realities. Healthcare systems achieve optimal results by following a structured implementation approach.

Identifying High-Impact Use Cases

Organizations should begin by analyzing current workflows to identify repetitive, time-intensive processes with high patient interaction volumes. Common starting points include appointment scheduling, care gap closure campaigns and post-visit follow-up processes.

Leveraging Template Libraries

Artera’s extensive template library, developed from hundreds of healthcare organizations’ collective experience, provides proven workflows that can be customized for specific organizational needs. These templates reduce implementation time while ensuring best practices are incorporated from the beginning.

Measuring and Optimizing Performance

Successful implementations include robust monitoring that tracks key performance indicators such as conversation completion rates, patient satisfaction scores, and staff time savings. This data enables continuous optimization and demonstrates return on investment to stakeholders.

Preparing for the Future of Healthcare AI

Artera Flows Agents position healthcare organizations at the forefront of AI adoption while maintaining the safety and reliability standards the industry requires. As healthcare continues its digital transformation, organizations with experience in intelligent automation will be better positioned to leverage emerging technologies effectively.

The platform’s comprehensive approach, which combines proven workflows, natural language understanding, and seamless human integration, creates the foundation for more sophisticated AI implementations. Organizations that master these capabilities today will be prepared to embrace autonomous AI agents.

Ready to explore how Artera Flows Agents can transform your organization’s workflows and patient experiences? Discover the strategic advantages of intelligent healthcare automation.

As healthcare AI agents evolve toward greater autonomy, solutions like Artera Flows Agents will continue setting the standard for safe, intelligent automation across the industry.

The post Your Gateway to Autonomous AI in Healthcare with Flows Agents appeared first on Artera.

In the high-stakes world of orthopedics, where speed to care and surgical readiness are paramount, standard automation is no longer enough. Today, leading practices are moving toward Agentic AI. By deploying intelligent AI Agents, orthopedic clinics can automate complex, multi-step care journeys, ensuring patients are supported from the first referral through post-operative recovery without increasing staff burden.

The Complex Challenges of Orthopedic Practices

Orthopedic care spans numerous subspecialties, including sports medicine, spine care, pediatric orthopedics and trauma. This diversity leads to common pain points, such as inefficient scheduling systems, incomplete patient data management and disjointed post-visit communications. These inefficiencies strain administrative staff, lead to patient dissatisfaction and negatively impact the bottom line.

For example, manual scheduling practices and lack of automation can result in delayed outreach to patients, underutilized appointment slots and no-shows. Limited coordination between primary care providers (PCPs) and orthopedic clinics often leaves patients unclear about their next steps for care. Combined with high transaction values and complex procedures like surgeries, orthopedic practices must be highly efficient to maintain operational excellence.

Amid all of this, fostering patient engagement is essential—not just to improve patient loyalty, but also to ensure better clinical outcomes through informed and active participation in care plans.

Strategies to Engage Orthopedic Patients Successfully

Here are key strategies orthopedic practices can adopt to improve patient engagement:

1. Streamline Patient Access with Autonomous Scheduling

Efficient scheduling is fundamental for a seamless patient experience. For orthopedic centers, that means going beyond traditional scheduling systems.

Given that orthopedic practices often deal with high-volume rescheduling and complex surgical waitlists, this is even more critical. Artera’s Scheduling Agents act as a 24/7 digital workforce, autonomously managing appointment lookups, cancellations, and rescheduling. Instead of just sending a link, these agents engage in dynamic conversations to fill last-minute cancellations, maximizing provider schedules and reducing the time patients wait for critical surgery.

Example: Artera’s ScheduleCare optimizes appointment utilization by automating scheduling workflows and freeing up staff from manual processes. Patients can self-schedule with ease, reducing missed appointments and increasing efficiency.

2. Ensure Surgical Readiness with Agentic Workflows

Timely and personalized pre-visit communication fosters trust and reduces confusion about appointment logistics and pre-visit preparation or instructions. Offering communication in multiple formats, such as text messages, emails or phone calls, ensures you meet each patient’s preferences.

By delivering pre-visit instructions via agentic workflows, you can ensure patient readiness, keep patients engaged across their entire journey and improve slot utilization. Not only that, but personalized messaging – driven by an AI-powered system – can automatically triage and respond to patient inquiries, so patients feel immediately supported along their journey.

Automated outreach also reduces gaps in care by proactively engaging patients for ortho-specific screenings, pre-visit instructions (e.g., no supplement intake 24-48 hours prior to visit) and satisfaction surveys.

Example: Artera enables orthopedic practices to deploy high-touch communication strategies through AI-powered workflows, ensuring patients get accurate and timely updates throughout their care journeys.

3. Provide Comprehensive Digital Intake Processes

A smooth intake process minimizes patient frustration and saves valuable staff time. Orthopedic clinics should offer digital solutions for pre-visit paperwork, screening forms and insurance verification. Clear upfront cost estimates also help patients feel financially prepared.

By digitizing every pre-visit step, clinics can reduce paperwork bottlenecks, improve accuracy, and shorten wait times at the front desk. Additionally, sending instructions for preparation (e.g., avoiding supplements before surgery) boosts adherence and ensures readiness for procedures.

Example: With tools like Artera Intake and Payments, orthopedic practices can provide customized digital intake forms, real-time eligibility checks and upfront financial transparency, empowering patients before their appointments.

4. Offer Payment Transparency and Automated Billing

Given that orthopedic services often involve costly surgeries and ongoing therapies, financial transparency is critical. Clear, upfront cost communication eliminates conflict and confusion, while automated billing reminders ensure faster payments.

Example: Artera’s payment solutions utilize digital reminders and self-service payment portals, improving financial workflows and reducing manual collection efforts.

5. Close the Loop with Post-Discharge & Care Gap AI Agents

Patient engagement doesn’t end when they leave the clinic. Post-visit communication is vital for ensuring adherence to care plans, scheduling follow-up appointments and monitoring recovery progress. Clinics should connect with patients via automated yet personalized follow-up messages, care instructions and feedback surveys to understand patient satisfaction and areas for improvement.

Example: Artera helps orthopedic clinics streamline this with automated post-visit care instructions and conversational messaging, creating a holistic patient experience that extends beyond the initial visit.

Elevating Orthopedic Patient Engagement with Artera’s AI Agents

Artera’s integrated AI solutions are purpose-built to address the complexities of orthopedic care. From digital scheduling and intake to financial transparency and post-visit follow-ups, Artera AI Agents equip clinics with tools that save staff time, enhance efficiency and boost revenue.

Why Should Orthopedic Practices Choose Artera for AI-Powered Communication?

Enhanced Patient Experience: Tailored workflows, personalized communication and educational outreach drive better engagement and outcomes.

Optimized Workflows: Automated scheduling, waitlist management and EHR integration reduce manual burdens on staff.

Improved Communication: AI-powered conversational messaging ensures timely and accurate patient interactions.

Revenue Recovery: With upfront cost estimates, automated billing and digital payment options, clinics collect revenue faster.

Proven Results with Artera

• 72% increase in patient response rates
• 50% conversion boost through waitlists
• 115+ hours of staff time saved weekly
• $2.1M average recovered annually due to fewer no-shows

When orthopedic practices use platforms like Artera to implement streamlined solutions, they not only improve operational efficiency but also create stronger, longer-lasting connections with their patients.

Transform Your Orthopedic Patient Engagement Today

Prioritizing patient engagement is no longer optional; it’s critical for modern orthopedic practices looking to stay competitive. By adopting innovative AI tools and strategies, you can create seamless journeys for your patients while driving real results for your practice.

Ready to see how Agentic AI can transform your orthopedic practice? Schedule a demo of Artera’s AI Agents today.

The post Enhancing Orthopedic Patient Engagement: Proven AI Strategies That Work appeared first on Artera.

While tools like ambient AI scribes have made AI a common term in healthcare, the next frontier is automating high-volume operational tasks. To get there, you have three options: build your own solutions, buy off-the-shelf products, or partner with a specialized vendor.

Understanding Agentic AI

Agentic AI represents a sophisticated convergence of multiple technologies working together to create human-like interactions that can complete complex tasks autonomously. Unlike simple chatbots or single-function AI tools, these systems integrate multiple technologies, including large language models, AI-generated voice capabilities, speech transcription and new standards like MCP for connecting AI systems to software.

Here are some real-world healthcare applications of agentic AI:

• Appointment scheduling 
• Prescription management
• Password resets 
• Insurance collection
• Bill processing

Artera data reveals that a substantial 45 percent of call center inquiries revolve around appointment verification, cancellations, and rescheduling. These are prime candidates for AI automation.

These AI agents work around the clock, 24/7, delivering consistent service and taking care of routine tasks that used to require human staff. The technology has matured to the point where it can deliver human-like experiences that often outperform traditional call center performance in speed, accuracy and experience.

Build vs. Buy vs. Partner 

AI Tech Stack: “The Metal” 

Before we dive into the three approaches, let’s take a moment to break down the key layers needed to build an AI Agent. Think of these layers as building blocks, often provided by different vendors and serving various needs. I like to refer to this AI tech stack as “the metal.” 

• Large Language Models (LLMs): Understands & generates human-like text; there are many model providers, and the best depends on the use-case and modality (e.g. Gemini Flash 2.5 or OpenAI Realtime are the lowest latency as of this writing)
  • Vendors include Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (ChatGPT), Google (Gemini), Meta (Llama), X1 (Grok), Deepseek (R1), Kimi (K2)
• Orchestration: Foundation layer that simplifies the process of integrating large language models with tools, while providing base observability and scalability for your agents
  • Vendors include AWS (Bedrock, Strands), Google (Vertex AI), Pipecat, LangChain
• Real-Time Voice: Includes two core services, often provided by distinct vendors depending on the use case. Speech-to-text (STT) transcribes audio into text, text-to-speech (TTS) turns LLM text output into spoken word, most typically using an “AI-generated voice” that is lifelike and infinitely customizable.
  • STT vendors include Google, Deepgram, Nuance and many others
  • TTS vendors include ElevenLabs, Cartesia, Murf, and many others
• Telephony: The core gateway connection into all the telecommunications and email (SMTP, POP3, IMAP) providers. For the most versatile agent, you will want to consider voice (PBX or SIP/VOIP), SMS, RCS, and email.
  • Vendors include Twilio, Sinch, Syniverse, Cisco and many more
• Tools: In healthcare, the “skills” you want your AI agent to fulfill (e.g. scheduling, prescription refill, insurance update) typically exist in the EHR/PM and are accessed via FHIR, HL7, SFTP or custom web services. As of this writing, best practice for leveraging tools involves creating a “translation” layer using an open standard like Model Context Protocol (MCP), which enables large language models to interact reliably with outside software. Think of MCP as the translator that allows AI agents to speak fluently with your existing healthcare systems, ensuring they can access patient information, update records, and complete transactions with the same reliability as human staff, but with greater consistency and availability.
• Evaluation: A high-performing AI agent requires significant prompt engineering, wherein the instructions for the LLM are tweaked to reliably achieve the desired outcome.  Evaluation frameworks allow your agents to simulate “real-world” situations to test for accuracy, safety, helpfulness, etc., before being deployed to production. The best AI systems will further implement a back-end “judge” that feeds real-life transcripts into the evaluation framework for continuous monitoring and improvement.

Building In-House AI Agents

The first approach, building an AI Agent in-house, demands substantial technical expertise and financial investment. This involves engaging with the lowest-level infrastructure and meticulously integrating the various components listed above. By carefully stitching these together, one could construct a bespoke solution. 

In this case, however, constructing a bespoke solution means you must work and maintain direct relationships with core AI Infrastructure providers to find solutions tailored to your needs, navigating a complex landscape and purchasing from each of them individually.

Advantages:

• Complete control over tech stack and implementation
• Customization aligned with specific organizational needs
• Highest quality product (provided the right supporting team)
• Lowest transaction costs (provided large enough volume)

Disadvantages:

• $3M minimum ongoing annualized investment (minimum of 2 Devops Engineers, 2 Machine Learning Engineers, 2 Senior Software Engineers, 1 Product Manager + hosting and software spend)
• Need for specialized in-house talent across multiple languages, e.g. Python for ML, YAML, JSON and JavaScript for SWE, and being current on various AI-specific standards like A2A and MCP
• Ongoing maintenance, all while staying up to speed with the latest technology advancements and agility to replace as new benchmarks emerge 

Purchasing an Off-the-Shelf AI Agent (OEM Vendor) 

Alternatively, health systems can work with a vendor that essentially rebrands a horizontal provider’s technology as their own: a practice known as OEMing (Original Equipment Manufacturing). OEM vendors provide a wrapper around existing middleware platforms (e.g. Vapi.ai or Bland.ai) that facilitate the creation of AI Agents, but are not specifically designed for healthcare.

This approach can mean paying double the actual technology cost while limiting direct access to the latest innovations and updates of the core provider within the AI Tech Stack or “the metal.”

Advantages:

• Single point of contact/vendor to manage
• Faster implementation timeline compared to building in-house
• Lower upfront costs compared to building in-house

Disadvantages:

• Higher long-term costs due to markup on underlying technology
• Limited customization capabilities
• Dependence on third-party middleware providers
• Less secure (additional entry point into your systems) 
• Less agility and control 

Another more preferable option (assuming in-house expertise around AI integration standards and baseline development capacity) would be a healthcare organization acting as its own OEM and integrating directly with the middleware platforms mentioned above. This will reduce vendor costs, while increasing maintenance spend and providing more direct control over the end product.

Partnering with AI Healthcare-Specialized Vendors

To steer clear of the above issues, I suggest health systems skip third-party vendors and work directly with those plugged directly into the metal. 

Which leads us to the third option: contracting with a vendor focused exclusively on healthcare (healthcare-vertical providers), who have direct access to those in the AI tech stack. Specialized healthcare AI vendors typically invest millions or more in developing healthcare-specific solutions, understanding the unique requirements of healthcare interoperability, security, and compliance, while maintaining direct relationships with core AI infrastructure providers.

Essentially, these vendors orchestrate and bundle all of the AI tech stack components / technology into a simple solution for healthcare providers, making it the fastest and most cost-effective way to deploy AI Agents. 

Advantages:

• Healthcare-specific expertise and compliance knowledge
• Direct integration with core AI infrastructure
• Proven real-world deployment experience
• Shared investment in healthcare-relevant innovations
• Faster time to value with lower risk
• Many customization capabilities 

Disadvantages:

• Dependence on partner’s technology roadmap
• Limited control over underlying technology decisions

The Core Tradeoff: Control Versus Speed

At its core, the build versus buy versus partner decision comes down to a tradeoff between control and speed.

Building in-house gives you full ownership of your tech stack, deeper integration into internal systems, and full control of sensitive data. However, it often requires longer development timelines, and significant upfront and ongoing investment

Buying off-the-shelf may offer faster deployment and lower initial costs (versus building), but can limit your ability to customize, restrict access to core data, and create long-term scalability issues.

The more strategic approach for many healthcare organizations is to partner with a vendor that understands the unique complexity of healthcare systems. By working with Artera, health systems accelerate time to value, leveraging years of specialized expertise, a compliant AI infrastructure, and deep integrations already built for real-world deployment. This approach reduces risk and cost while giving you the flexibility to scale with confidence.

Choosing between these paths is not always a binary decision. In many cases, the optimal strategy is a hybrid model that combines the customization benefits of in-house development with the speed, scalability, and stability of a proven AI partner like Artera.

Lessons Learned

We’ve spent years investing in AI, and with the rapid rise of Agentic AI, we’ve quickly embraced, configured and deployed it for many of our customers. Here’s what we’ve learned along the way…

Technology Evolution Speed

The pace of change in Agentic AI is unprecedented. Technologies that required significant custom development just months ago are now available as standard features from major providers. This rapid evolution makes long-term technology investments particularly risky for organizations building in-house solutions.

Security and Compliance Complexity

Agentic AI systems are advancing at a rapid pace, requiring a fundamental shift in how we approach data security. Traditional static, point-in-time assessments are no longer sufficient. Instead, safeguarding these dynamic systems calls for continuous monitoring, robust multi-layered security frameworks, and a seamless integration of human oversight with AI-driven validation.

Real-World Deployment Value

The competitive advantage lies not in the underlying AI technology itself, but in healthcare-specific implementation experience. Understanding how to handle edge cases, manage patient interactions, and integrate with healthcare workflows requires extensive domain expertise.

Cost Structure Reality

The current pricing for AI solutions is unsustainable at scale. Similar to the dot-com boom, the current market is subsidized, with artificially low AI prices. When the inevitable market correction happens, many vendors won’t survive. Therefore, organizations must partner with vendors that are not only financially stable enough to withstand the crash but also have sustainable business models for long-term success.

Looking for more? Join the 12/9 healthsystemCIO webinar, Maximizing Value, Minimizing Risk: Operationalizing an Agentic AI Strategy, to discuss this topic more.

Today’s healthcare market is saturated with AI agent solutions, making vendor evaluation difficult for healthcare providers amidst similar claims and significant costs.

To simplify your evaluation, we’ve identified the top five factors that distinguish Artera’s AI agents today. Whether you’re new to AI agents or well into your research for a partner, we hope this distillation proves valuable.

Artera’s blog posts and press releases are for informational purposes only and are not legal or business advice. Artera assumes no responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of blogs and non-legally required press releases. Claims for damages arising from decisions based on this release are expressly disclaimed, to the extent permitted by law.

The post Agentic AI for Healthcare: Build, Buy or Partner appeared first on Artera.

Organizations are quickly adopting AI agents for healthcare to streamline operations, reduce staff workload and enhance the patient experience. But here’s the thing: the success of these tools comes down to one big factor: how well they integrate with your existing systems. Even the smartest AI is only as good as its ability to connect to your data and workflows. Without seamless integration, you risk expensive technology that doesn’t fully deliver.

The tricky part? Every vendor claims to offer “deep EHR integration” or “seamless connectivity.” For healthcare IT leaders, the challenge is cutting through the buzzwords to figure out which partner can deliver real results. Let’s break down what to look for when assessing an AI agent partner based on actual integration depth and scope. 

Integration Capabilities Impact AI Agent Success

AI agents need access to the right data to truly be effective. Think EHRs, scheduling tools, and billing platforms: these are the core systems running patient care. Real-time data access allows AI agents to make smart decisions based on current patient information, schedules, and protocols. They also need to communicate back, updating records, booking appointments, and triggering workflows.

If the integration isn’t solid, you’re left with fragmented data and manual workarounds, which defeats the purpose of automation. To get the most out of AI, you need a partner who can connect all the dots seamlessly.

Evaluating Integration Scope and Diversity

Health system leaders must thoroughly assess and understand the integration capabilities available from a potential agentic AI partner. When evaluating vendors, healthcare organizations should look beyond broad integration claims and marketing to truly grasp the depth of their offerings.

Effective integration demands careful consideration of several critical dimensions, including experience and distribution, the breadth and diversity of EHR integration types and overarching ecosystem strategies.

Below are several topics and questions to consider when evaluating an agentic AI vendor’s integration capabilities across these dimensions: 

Customer Volume and EHR Integration Diversity

Many vendors can showcase one or two basic integrations, but scaling AI agents across healthcare teams and environments demands proven expertise with multiple data sources. It’s important to seek out vendors who can demonstrate experience with multiple customers using your EHR platform, the ability to handle diverse data feed types beyond basic scheduling, and production workflows that actively process patient interactions.

Potential Question to Ask Vendors During Evaluation:

“How many customers have you successfully integrated with our specific EHR system, and across how many different data feeds / sources?”

The Artera Difference → At Artera, we maintain a comprehensive internal repository of EHR data feeds and integration types, which enables efficient knowledge transfer across teams and allows us to quickly reference EHR integration setups for customer support and shared learning.

Diverse Integration Methods

EHR integration isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. It’s essential to partner with a vendor who has a thorough understanding of various integration methods and can guide your team toward the approach that best aligns with your needs. Choosing a vendor limited to a single integration method could restrict your options and hinder your success.

For example, static file uploads may be suitable for infrequently changing data, such as FAQ content, but dynamic patient information requires real-time API connectivity. Vendors should demonstrate understanding of when to use different integration approaches and the operational implications of each choice.

Question to ask: 

“Do you support multiple integration pathways, and can you give examples of when each was used successfully? How do you determine the right approach for different data types?” 

The Artera Difference →At Artera, our integrations extend across multiple data feeds and API endpoints. Our in-house integration engineering team supports the full spectrum of healthcare data exchange methods, including:

• HL7 messaging for real-time clinical data exchange
• Flat file for structured files like CSV, TXT or TSV
• FHIR APIs for modern, standards-based connectivity
• SFTP file transfers for batch data processing
• Custom development for unique organizational requirements

While these technical methods are crucial for data exchange, the next-generation challenge is making that data actionable for AI agents. To reliably enable core agent functions—such as scheduling appointments, updating patient records, or processing prescription refills—the industry is adopting Model Context Protocol (MCP) as a best practice. MCP acts as a standardized “translation” layer, allowing Large Language Models (LLMs) to speak fluently with your existing clinical and operational systems. This open standard ensures that the AI agent’s interactions and transactions are consistent, trustworthy, and scalable across all your healthcare workflows.

For an even deeper understanding of MCP, read this blog from Artera alum and technical advisor Ashu Agte.

Workflow Support

Beyond a strong ecosystem, assess the complexity of workflows the vendor can handle, and their ability to support diverse teams and functions across an entire health system. Does the vendor’s solution only assist with scheduling (i.e., just in the call center), or can it manage a broader range of healthcare workflows across different teams?

The more comprehensive the workflows a vendor can support, the better equipped they are to scale alongside your organization’s evolving needs across departments and teams.

Questions to ask:

 “What use cases do you support along the patient journey? Do you solve for one workflow, or can you expand to more complex use cases?” 

The Artera Difference →At Artera, we work with customers across various areas and departments, including patient access and intake, value-based care, and chronic condition management teams. Our flexible use cases and workflow solutions allow us to scale and adapt to meet the unique needs of your organization. While some AI agent vendors focus on single-use cases like reducing call volume, Artera’s integration engine supports comprehensive patient journey workflows:

• Patient demographics and appointment management for personalized interactions
• Scheduling APIs for real-time appointment booking and modifications
• Referral management to reduce leakage and improve care coordination
• Post-discharge follow-up to ensure continuity of care
• Recall and preventive care campaigns for population health management
• And more…

Ecosystem & Partnerships 

An AI agent’s value multiplies when it can interact with your broader tech ecosystem. Vendors with established marketplace partnerships can unlock new workflows faster than those building relationships from scratch. 

Question to ask: 

“What existing partnerships / contracts do you have in place? How quickly can you enable integrations with our other technology vendors?

The Artera Difference → Beyond EHR integration, Artera’s Marketplace provides pre-built connections to 50+ digital health vendors across the care continuum. These established partnerships enable AI agents to access data and trigger actions across:

• Revenue cycle management platforms for billing and payment workflows
• Patient engagement tools for unified communication experiences
• Population health solutions for comprehensive care management
• Telehealth platforms for virtual care coordination
• Given the established partnerships we have with other vendors, we can unlock more workflows faster for our customers.  

What Questions Should You Ask When Evaluating Agentic AI Partners for Healthcare?

Here’s a quick list of questions to guide your conversations with potential agentic AI partners: 

What Are the Hidden Costs of Poor Integration?

Choosing an AI agent vendor with insufficient integration depth can result in serious downsides:

First, custom development expenses quickly accumulate when vendors lack pre-built connectors for your existing systems. Second, operational overhead can increase significantly, as staff must manually transfer data between disconnected platforms, wasting valuable time and resources. Third, scalability limitations emerge, as vendors may struggle to adapt their solutions to your organization’s evolving growth and changing needs.

Perhaps most importantly, weak integration prevents AI agents from accessing the full context required for smart decision-making. This directly reduces their effectiveness and hinders user adoption, undermining the very purpose of implementing AI.

Artera’s Integration Advantage

With over 10 years of healthcare-specific integration experience, Artera brings unmatched expertise to the AI agent space. We’ve supported 1,000+ healthcare organizations with EHR integrations across a variety of workflows, giving us the knowledge and tools to deliver robust, scalable solutions. For more information on our integrations, click here. 

Making the Right Choice for Long-term Success

Picking the right AI agent partner starts with understanding your goals. What challenges are you trying to solve? What future needs do you anticipate? Your vendor should not only address today’s issues but also scale with your growth.

As you evaluate potential partners, ask yourself one critical question: “Can this vendor truly support my organization’s long-term success?” If the answer is yes, you’re on the right track.

Today’s healthcare market is saturated with AI agent solutions, making vendor evaluation difficult for healthcare providers amidst similar claims and significant costs.

To simplify your evaluation, we’ve identified the top five factors that distinguish Artera’s AI agents today. Whether you’re new to AI agents or well into your research for a partner, we hope this distillation proves valuable.

Artera’s blog posts and press releases are for informational purposes only and are not legal or business advice. Artera assumes no responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of blogs and non-legally required press releases. Claims for damages arising from decisions based on this release are expressly disclaimed, to the extent permitted by law.

The post Agentic AI Healthcare Integration: How to Choose the Right Partner appeared first on Artera.

While chatbots once offered basic help, many organizations quickly ran into the limits of generic workflows, low adoption of digital tools, and slow EHR response times. These pain points have encouraged a shift toward more sophisticated systems. This evolution is not just about smarter conversations; it is about deploying intelligent agents that perform end-to-end tasks, paving the way for the future of AI in patient communications. These agentic systems address high-volume, low-acuity needs, automate traditionally manual processes, and help healthcare systems scale with AI, moving well beyond the chatbot.

In this post, we’ll explore how healthcare organizations can move beyond limited chatbot functionality by implementing comprehensive AI technologies, highlighting the measurable benefits and real-world use cases that advance both patient and provider goals. Whether you’re seeking an AI transformation strategy, ready for enterprise AI deployment, or interested in the next generation of scalable patient engagement, discover why AI in healthcare is evolving fast and how Artera goes beyond bots with proven, HIPAA-compliant solutions.

The Rise of Agentic Systems in Healthcare

The next wave of AI in healthcare is centered on agentic systems. This term refers to intelligent agents capable of performing complex, multi-step tasks autonomously. As Artera CEO Guillaume de Zwirek noted in a recent healthsystemCIO report, the call center is an area rich with measurable tasks ripe for this type of automation. Instead of just answering a question, these AI agents can complete an entire process on behalf of the patient.

What makes this possible is the integration of several advanced technologies:

• Speech-to-text and Text-to-speech: These capabilities allow AI to understand and respond to patients over the phone, creating a natural and accessible user experience.
• Large Language Models (LLMs): LLMs provide the conversational intelligence needed to understand patient intent, handle variations in language, and carry out nuanced interactions.
• Guarded API Calls: Secure connections to other systems, like the Electronic Health Record (EHR), allow the AI agent to access information and perform actions such as booking an appointment or checking the status of a prescription refill.

By stitching these technologies together, agentic systems can handle a wide range of tasks from start to finish. This includes appointment verification, rescheduling, medication refills, portal password resets, and answering routine informational requests. The key difference from a simple chatbot is the ability to execute tasks, not just provide information.

Moving from Hype to Measurable Outcomes

For a long time, AI was seen as a “solution in search of a problem,” according to de Zwirek. Today, its application in patient communications is solving clear and urgent challenges. Healthcare leaders are no longer interested in AI for its own sake; they demand solutions that address concrete problems and move key performance indicators (KPIs). Agentic systems are delivering on this demand by producing tangible, measurable results.

Reducing Friction in Call Centers

Call centers are a major source of administrative burden and patient frustration. Long hold times, multiple transfers, and inconsistent information are common complaints. AI agents can automate a significant portion of inbound call volume, freeing up human staff to focus on more complex, high-acuity patient needs. By handling routine requests instantly, these systems drastically reduce wait times and improve first-call resolution rates. Patients get what they need faster, and staff are less overwhelmed.

Enhancing the Patient Experience

A better operational process naturally leads to a better patient experience. When a patient can call after hours to reschedule an appointment or confirm their medication has been refilled without waiting for a human agent, their satisfaction increases. This 24/7 availability meets modern consumer expectations and removes common barriers to care. It ensures that every patient interaction is efficient and productive, building trust and loyalty over time.

Improving Operational Efficiency

The automation of high-volume tasks has a direct impact on the bottom line. By reducing the manual workload on administrative teams, healthcare organizations can optimize resource allocation and lower operational costs. Staff who previously spent their days on repetitive phone calls can be redeployed to higher-value activities. This improved efficiency allows health systems to serve more patients effectively without a proportional increase in administrative headcount.

The Critical Role of Governance and Transparency

With greater capability comes greater responsibility. As AI agents take on more complex tasks, the need for robust governance and oversight becomes paramount. Deploying these systems is not a “set it and forget it” process. Health systems must establish clear frameworks to ensure these tools operate safely, accurately, and transparently.

Artera CEO Guillaume de Zwirek highlights several non-negotiable components for effective governance:

• Live Transcripts: Every interaction between an AI agent and a patient should be transcribed in real time. This provides a complete record for quality assurance, auditing, and troubleshooting.
• Accuracy Scores: Systems must be able to measure and report on the accuracy of the information provided and the tasks completed. This data is essential for ongoing performance monitoring and improvement.
• Vendor Transparency: Healthcare organizations need to understand how a vendor’s AI models are built, trained, and updated. This includes clarity on data tenancy and how patient information is handled.
• Clear Handoffs: When an AI agent cannot resolve an issue, there must be a seamless and clearly defined process for escalating the interaction to a human agent.

This level of instrumentation ensures that health systems maintain control and visibility over automated interactions. It allows leaders to trust that the technology is performing as expected while providing the data needed to demonstrate compliance and value to executive boards and other stakeholders.

Transforming Healthcare Strategy with Scalable AI

For health system executives, CIOs, and innovation leaders, now is the time to consider how comprehensive AI technologies can elevate enterprise strategy and patient engagement. The new generation of AI tools—such as Artera Harmony, AI Co-Pilots, Healthcare API Integrations, and Smart Inbox—are designed for scalable deployment across your organization’s digital infrastructure. These solutions drive automated engagement, foster patient journey intelligence, and strengthen operational efficiency with HIPAA-safe AI at the core.

Forward-thinking organizations are already leveraging these capabilities to move beyond limited chatbot functionality and generic workflows. They are implementing tailored transformation strategies and enterprise-wide AI deployments that improve adoption, accelerate digital maturity, and optimize every step of the patient journey.

Paving the Way for a More Efficient Future

The evolution of AI in healthcare from simple chatbots to sophisticated agentic systems marks a significant step forward. These tools are no longer just a novelty; they are essential infrastructure for modern healthcare delivery. By automating high-volume, low-acuity tasks, AI agents are solving tangible problems related to administrative burden, patient access, and operational efficiency. They are enabling healthcare organizations to become more responsive, resilient, and patient-centric.

The journey is far from over, but the path is clear. With a focus on measurable outcomes and a commitment to strong governance, AI will continue to expand its role in healthcare. The “agents at the front door” are just the beginning of a larger transformation, one that promises to create a more streamlined and effective healthcare system for everyone.

The post Why AI in Healthcare Is About More Than Just Chatbots appeared first on Artera.

These are fundamentally simple tasks that create bottlenecks in the system. Patients face long hold times, high abandonment rates, and limited access to care coordination outside business hours. Meanwhile, healthcare staff spend valuable time on routine tasks instead of focusing on higher-acuity patient needs.

Patient communication isn’t just a part of patient access; it’s the foundation of it. When we remove communication barriers, we dramatically improve access to care. 

I believe agentic AI is poised to accelerate the breakdown of common patient communications barriers – faster and more effectively than ever before.

Agentic AI: A Transformative Force for Patient Communications

Agentic AI represents the next major tidal wave hitting healthcare. Hundreds of companies are entering this space, with hundreds of millions of dollars being raised. The pace of change is extraordinary—faster than any technology revolution we’ve experienced in our lifetimes, including mobile, web, and social media.

We’re seeing new infrastructure upgrades that meaningfully advance the technology’s potential on what feels like a daily basis. This rapid innovation is driving improvements across the board—from reducing latency to improving background noise suppression. 

At Artera, we’re deeply committed to driving innovation in agentic AI. Over the past few months alone, we’ve updated our underlying infrastructure more than 20 times, achieving exponential improvements to product quality. Our latency now sits below 500 milliseconds, we’ve deployed dozens of MCP tools and servers, our continuous learning framework is in production and ingesting live transcripts, and we’re supporting multiple languages. These aren’t just incremental improvements—they’re transformational leaps that directly benefit patient care.

Deterministic AI Agents: A Stepping Stone to Autonomous AI Agents 

Despite significant technological advancements, our core mission has remained unchanged for a decade: making healthcare number one in customer service. To us, “customer service” refers to how patients experience care outside the four walls of a hospital or clinic.

Our focus has been specifically on communications—enabling seamless, asynchronous interactions between healthcare providers and patients, no matter where they are. The rise of artificial intelligence has fundamentally changed how this experience will unfold in healthcare moving forward.

Our AI-powered, deterministic Flows Agents deliver two strategic benefits that align with our vision: 

First, it serves as a definitive knowledge base of proven pathways that have been hardened over many years across hundreds of institutions and for millions of patients. This knowledge repository is an invaluable tool for training fully autonomous agents.

Second, Flows Agents act as a stepping stone into fully autonomous AI. Healthcare operates under strict regulations, where technology—especially autonomous AI—can have life-and-death implications. Flows uses deterministic logic combined with natural language understanding (NLU) to guide patients through specific automated journeys. These pathways eliminate risks associated with hallucinations and jailbreaking, helping build initial comfort with AI among healthcare leadership, while creating a clear path toward full autonomy through our AI Agents. 

Where to Start: Automating Routine Interactions That Create Barriers to Care

Agentic AI offers the opportunity to automate the routine administrative phone tasks I initially mentioned, while making them available 24/7 at a quality bar that approaches that of real humans. By reducing the burden of simple interactions, we elevate staff to focus on higher-acuity patient needs, reduce hold times and abandonment rates, and ultimately improve access to care.

As system interoperability continues to advance, we’ll be able to streamline more routine patient tasks, creating a truly personalized, concierge-like experience for every patient while simultaneously reducing healthcare operating costs.

This enhanced accessibility will span all communication channels—voice, messaging, and web—ensuring patients can connect anytime, anywhere. At Artera, we’re excited to shape the future of patient communication, where every individual benefits from 24/7 concierge-like care.

The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same

While technology is changing rapidly, the fundamental challenges of healthcare communication remain the same. Patients need frictionless, asynchronous communication channels that allow them to engage with their care teams on their own terms and schedules. Providers, on the other hand, need efficient, automated workflows with the flexibility to involve human intervention when necessary.

I believe our decade of experience in tackling these core challenges gives us a distinct edge as we innovate with agentic AI. By building on a foundation of proven solutions and deep market knowledge, we not only leverage the potential of technology but also address the real, pressing needs of the industry. 

Today’s healthcare market is saturated with AI agent solutions, making vendor evaluation difficult for healthcare providers amidst similar claims and significant costs.

To simplify your evaluation, we’ve identified the top five factors that distinguish Artera’s AI agents today. Whether you’re new to AI agents or well into your research for a partner, we hope this distillation proves valuable.

Artera’s blog posts and press releases are for informational purposes only and are not legal or business advice. Artera assumes no responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of blogs and non-legally required press releases. Claims for damages arising from decisions based on this release are expressly disclaimed, to the extent permitted by law.

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