Virtual Assistants Become the Newest Members of the Healthcare Team. With its interactive IVAs, CodeBaby has tried to simulate an online conversation.

1. 2 eHealthcare Strategy & Trends August 2012
Volume 16 Number 3 ▪ March 2014 www.strategichealthcare.com
Virtual Assistants Become
the Newest Members of the Healthcare Team
by Theresa
Jacobellis
“Hi. I’m Myra.
When you’re
ready, click on
one of these
links to get started,” she says in a
warm voice with a confident and
professional tone. “As a lifestyle
health coach, I can tell you a good
program starts with a health risk as-
sessment. So, we have some ques-
tions about your medical history and
your current health.”
With her hair pinned up in a bun
and wearing a white lab coat, Myra is
focused on assisting the patient with
the completion of an online risk as-
sessment form. She won’t be dis-
tracted by the needs of another
patient, a ringing telephone, or a co-
worker. That’s because Myra isn’t
human. She is an intelligent virtual
assistant (IVA), an online consumer
engagement tool that is helping to
measurably improve the online user
experience in the healthcare environ-
ment.
“The human voice is where you’re
able to make an emotional con-
nection with the online user,” ex-
plains Dennis McGuire, CEO of
CodeBaby, a leading IVA technology
provider. “About 40 percent of
what users comprehend online is
through audio, so we don’t use a
computer-generated voice but an
emotionally appropriate human
voice to support whatever content
and experience our clients are going
after.”
CodeBaby was founded by physi-
cians who launched and eventually
sold a video gaming company while
finishing their residency training.
That experience equipped them with
a vision of an online virtual assistant
to guide users through various ac-
tivities. Educational and training
modules were among their earliest
applications. They soon realized that
healthcare is particularly well suited
to using their technology.
“In healthcare, you have complex
products and services where the user
may not be comfortable with the
subject matter and terminology,”
says McGuire. “Consumers may
need additional assistance to feel
empowered in making correct deci-
sions for themselves and their
families.”
The emergence of a Web-centric
society, where consumers frequently
turn to online tools to manage many
aspects of their lives, created greater
opportunities for CodeBaby to mar-
ket its technology.
“Our lives have moved online. We
do many things on the Web, and
that has led to a wave of movement
toward creating better customer
experiences and self-service op-
portunities,” McGuire says. “We
focus on making sure the brand,
product, or service is giving con-
sumers and patients the options they
want to get information on their
terms, within their time frame, using
the channels they choose.”
With its interactive IVAs, CodeBaby
has tried to simulate an online con-
versation. “We are trying to
replicate what it’s like talking to a
service rep on the phone,” says
McGuire. “We create short
interactive segments, so it’s not a
one-way monologue.”
Data seems to support the value of
offering consumers virtual online
support.
“We’ve helped clients achieve a 98
percent forms completion rate,” says
Mike Smith, vice president of busi-
ness development for CodeBaby.

2. 2 eHealthcare Strategy & Trends March 2014
According to Smith, there are multi-
ple applications for IVAs in the
healthcare space. “They can be used
for hospital check-in or insurance
verification. Help desks at hospitals
are amazingly overwhelmed. Using
an IVA can cut call center time, and
that means saving lots of man-
hours,” he says.
CodeBaby
claims that
organizations
using its
technology
have experi-
enced a 76
percent in-
crease in
customer
engagement,
a 27 percent
increase in
paying cus-
tomer con-
versions, and
an 80 percent increase in form accu-
racy.
As online health insurance market-
places debut around the country,
virtual assistants can help walk con-
sumers through the complex process
of selecting an appropriate plan.
Similarly, commercial insurance
companies are finding the technol-
ogy beneficial in helping their
members navigate complicated and
content-rich websites.
Providers may also find that virtual
assistants can educate patients in a
way that rivals or even surpasses the
human touch – and can help the
bottom line by reducing read-
missions.
“Early research at Boston University
with a rudimentary avatar providing
discharge instructions in the patient’s
native language resulted in a 30 per-
cent lower readmission rate,”
McGuire says. “When dealing with a
human you don’t know very well,
most of us
don’t want
to expose
our igno-
rance, so
we are less
likely to
drill down
and ask
questions.
When in-
teracting
with an
avatar on-
line, peo-
ple know
it’s not a real human; it’s just a char-
acter, so they feel comfortable asking
questions. They end up with a better
understanding of the requirements
of their situation, which results in
better disease management.”
With a library of more than 80 char-
acters that can be customized in
terms of appearance, wardrobe,
voice, and even language to suit the
personality of the healthcare brand,
CodeBaby offers an avatar for every-
body. Avatars can even be cus-
tomized according to the user’s
preferences. And for those who pre-
fer to go it alone, the avatar will hap-
pily disappear from the screen.
To view a personal health
assessment demo, go to
http://player.vimeo.com/video/
44419507?autoplay=1. And to view
a demo setting up an appointment,
go to http://player.vimeo.com/
video/24472840?autoplay=1.
Theresa Jacobellis, MS, is assistant
vice president of development and
public affairs at Good Samaritan
Hospital Medical Center in West Islip,
NY. You can reach her at
thjacobellis@optonline.net. eH
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