Tampa General Hospital Ends Call Abandonment Crisis with AI-Powered Voice Agent
Tampa General Hospital has dramatically improved patient access by deploying an AI-powered voice agent, named “Aimee,” to answer every incoming call, resolving a critical issue that left approximately 40,000 patients unable to connect with the health system each month. The implementation addresses longstanding challenges with call center capacity and staffing, signaling a broader trend of healthcare providers embracing artificial intelligence to streamline operations and enhance patient experience.
From 40,000 Abandoned Calls to Seamless Connections
The seven-hospital Florida health system faced a significant access problem, with an estimated 40,000 calls being abandoned monthly. According to a senior official at Tampa General, the overwhelmed call center struggled with high employee turnover and simply lacked the resources to handle the inbound volume. “We were abandoning something like 40,000 calls per month or more,” the official stated. “And that’s a lot of people calling in that just aren’t even getting answered.”
Tampa General moved with remarkable speed, signing a contract with vendor Hyro in late June and having Aimee answering calls by mid-September. By the end of October, the voice agent was already successfully scheduling appointments.
Rapid Implementation and Unexpected Benefits
Aimee’s initial capabilities focused on providing basic information like directions and call routing. The system quickly evolved to handle more complex tasks, including appointment scheduling, cancellations, and rescheduling. Remarkably, human call center staff enthusiastically embraced the technology, even creating a cardboard cutout of Aimee that they decorate for holidays and actively participate in training the AI.
The results have been substantial. Human schedulers are now booking 21 to 25 percent more appointments than before the implementation. This increase is attributed to staff being able to focus on complex scheduling scenarios while Aimee efficiently manages routine interactions. “Our capacity hasn’t changed. We’re still very full. But they’re able to spend more time getting people access where we were having an issue with that before,” explained a company representative.
Strategic Vendor Selection and a $25 Million Tech Investment
Tampa General opted for a third-party solution after determining that its existing Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendor, Epic, did not yet offer comparable voice interaction capabilities. This decision reflects a deliberate strategy of filling gaps in platform functionality through targeted partnerships.
The health system demonstrates a strong commitment to innovation, maintaining a $25 million venture fund dedicated to identifying and investing in emerging technology companies that address operational challenges. A key principle guiding these investments is a preference for deep relationships with a smaller number of partners, standardizing technology stacks to improve both patient experience and operational efficiency.
Data Hygiene: The Foundation for AI Success
Prior to Aimee’s deployment, Tampa General undertook extensive foundational work with consulting partner Guidehouse. This included a critical cleanup of physician scheduling templates, addressing inconsistencies that had accumulated over years of individualized customization within the EMR system. This data hygiene proved essential for ensuring the voice agent could accurately book appointments.
To ensure a positive patient experience, Aimee is programmed with safeguards to recognize when callers prefer human interaction. The system is trained to identify indicators of frustration, such as profanity, and immediately transfer the call to a human representative.
Addressing Downstream Capacity Constraints
The success of Aimee in improving initial access has, predictably, revealed capacity limitations further down the line. As one analyst noted, solving the “front door” problem simply shifts the bottleneck to provider availability and overall clinical capacity.
However, Tampa General’s leadership team is well-positioned to address these systemic challenges, benefiting from shared incentives and goals across all operational areas. A senior official emphasized the crucial role of technology leaders in contributing to solutions wherever bottlenecks emerge within the patient access continuum.
Call center staff have reported a noticeable decrease in caller frustration, even when eventual transfer to a human representative is required. This improvement has boosted job satisfaction and may contribute to reducing the turnover that initially exacerbated the access problem.
Looking ahead, Tampa General recognizes that optimizing patient access is an ongoing process. “Once you fix the front, it moves now to the middle,” a company leader reflected. “And the idea is to move it all the way down eventually.”
