CipherHealth unveils CipherConnect, a conversational patient engagement solution

The company also launched a suite of pre-care digital front door solutions powered by CipherConnect to drive appointment volume and reduce no-shows.

Cipher Health

CipherHealth announced CipherConnect, a new conversational engagement solution that automates the many manual scheduling, intake, and virtual waiting room tasks that consume precious frontline resources. CipherConnect manages patient-provider communication via a frictionless, conversational, web-based chat interface that captures relevant conversational patient data and seamlessly integrates with EMRs, delivering a more comprehensive and up-to-date view of patients’ health and wellness.

How does it work?

CipherConnect is interoperable with over 85 EHR systems, including Epic and Cerner. By interconnecting dynamic, conversational data from CipherConnect with clinical information held in the EHRs, providers have a more complete and up-to-date picture of their patients, enabling them to be better prepared and agile to resolve issues that impact the patient journey and result in better outcomes downstream. Later this year, CipherHealth will augment CipherConnect with additional “virtual waiting room” capabilities and more advanced scheduling and referral management solutions that keep patients interacting with providers between visits.

In addition to its current pre-care solutions, including Appointment Reminders, Procedure Preparation, and Patient Screening solutions, CipherHealth is using the conversational engagement capabilities of CipherConnect to roll out a new set of digital front door solutions:

  • Booking Confirmation: Share booking details for newly scheduled appointments including time, provider name, and location.
  • Appointment Prep: Inform patients on next steps for arrival, such as safety instructions, remote registration, and check-in.
  • Data Intake: Collect data for consent, forms, screeners, and other paperwork before arrival; upload images of insurance cards and identification as well as documents for billing or from a previous provider.
On the record

“Removing friction in pre-care workflows has never been more important for both providers and patients,” said Jake Pyles, CipherHealth CEO. “CipherConnect does just that by automating many of the critical interactions that patients have with their providers as they prepare for their appointments. But CipherConnect goes far beyond the capabilities of a mere chatbot, allowing providers to capture and leverage conversational context and data for richer and more informed interactions later in the patient journey, from point-of-care to post-care through preventative care. As data gathered at one point along the care continuum can be applied to any other part, providers can truly deliver personalized care at scale.”

“We’re operating in a different world than we were two years ago on so many different levels. Notably, we have a patient base that places an ever-growing value on convenience, personalization, and compassionate care,” said Shawn R. Smith, MBA, CPXP, Assistant Vice President: Clinical Enterprise, Patient Experience at Inova. “CipherHealth’s vision for the future of patient engagement tightly aligns with ours: Patients should feel known and welcomed from the very first interaction they have with us, and that experience should be carried through every time, every touch-to each person in every community we have the privilege to serve. CipherHealth’s tools and solutions for engagement, and particularly their new set of pre-care engagement tools, allow us to execute on that vision in new and comprehensive ways.”

The context

Healthcare is facing an existential threat: Overextended nurses and physicians are abandoning their jobs at unprecedented levels, while consumers have growing expectations for more seamless, convenient, and personalized experiences from their healthcare providers. According to Adam Cherrington, Senior Research Director at KLAS Research, “Recent research of ours has shown that digital front door solutions -particularly those focused on pre-care activation and preparation-not only improve patient convenience and satisfaction, but also reduce the administrative burden on a nursing community that is increasingly burned out and leaving the profession at unprecedented levels.”