By Patty Hayward

Employee burnout has become endemic in healthcare. A recent AMA survey of clinicians shows that more than half are experiencing high levels of stress due to time constraints, overwork, poorly designed technologies, inefficient workflows and the emotional weight of dealing with patients who themselves may be stressed, confused or scared.

Many of these same factors impact healthcare contact center support agents. These workers routinely deal with patients and health plan members who may be under great duress and even pain because of their physical conditions or inability to obtain test results, get answers to questions regarding insurance benefits and coverage, or schedule an immediate appointment for an oncologist or other chronic care specialist. Though clinical staff are usually the focus of most research into healthcare burnout, recent studies show non-clinical staff, especially those who deal directly with patients, experience similar occupational stress.

There’s nothing more personal than healthcare. Whether you’re a clinician or a contact center support agent, you are there to help people with issues concerning their physical and mental well-being. The stakes are high for patients and health plan members, which increase their anxiety. For contact center workers, being empowered to assist these people efficiently and empathetically is vital to both delivering exceptional service and feeling enabled and valuable at work.

Unfortunately, many contact center support agents work with technology that is not user-friendly. They are overwhelmed by call volume and an inability to find the information a patient or health plan member needs because of inefficient workflows.

The pandemic only intensified these challenges for healthcare contact center agents, contributing to burnout and high rates of turnover that can cost organizations from $10,000 to $20,000 for each departed agent, according to a McKinsey report. Even when agents who are burned out don’t quit, they can cost healthcare organizations because they are far less likely to perform at their best, particularly if they lack sufficient support, tools, and training.

A survey conducted for the McKinsey report found that “contact center employees who are satisfied with their job overall are four times more likely to stay with their companies for at least a year.”

It’s clear that healthcare organizations have a huge stake in retaining contact center agents. So, what can healthcare providers and insurers do to reduce contact center agent burnout and turnover and enable agents to fulfill their desire to help patients and plan members? Here are several strategies they can deploy:

Use AI to assist agents in real time. Healthcare contact center agents are under a lot of pressure to help people who have questions or concerns regarding lab test results, finding the right specialist, prescriptions, deductibles, billing, and other important medical and insurance issues. These patients and plan members may be upset or even angry, which can unsettle inexperienced support agents and diminish both their effectiveness and ability to respond appropriately.

By employing artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), natural language processing and other smart technologies, healthcare organizations can allow agents to quickly resolve patient and plan member issues by proactively providing agents with next best-action recommendations for each stage of a live call or digital chat. These tools also can conduct sentiment analysis to provide cues for agents to respond to patients and members in the most empathetic way based on contextual recommendations. This replaces the traditional “script” approach used by support centers with genuine human interaction that members value and increase the job satisfaction of healthcare agents.

Automate repetitive tasks. When agents are trying to help patients or members in real-time with issues related to their health or plan coverage, the last thing they need is to get bogged down with simple but necessary tasks, such as opening a new case or pulling up an existing account. Integrating automation in the contact center platform can ease the burden of manual tasks for agents, allowing them to focus on more complex tasks and on the person they’re trying to assist.

Offer self-help features for patients and members. Similarly, automation can be used by healthcare organizations to provide self-help options – such as the ability to confirm appointments – to patients and plan members. These types of tools not only streamline the support process for agents, they offer patients and members an opportunity to be self-sufficient, something that many consumers in the digital age highly value.

Give agents an integrated, user-friendly interface. A poorly designed interface can slow down and frustrate contact center agents as they try to navigate through multiple screens and apps while trying to help a patient or member in real time. Rather than being forced to bounce from screen to screen, agents should be furnished with easily navigable interfaces that integrate multichannel data.

“Train up” agents to the level of your highest performers. AI/ML can be used to raise the quality of support provided by all agents across the contact center by learning the techniques of top performers and standardizing them for training and during agent interactions with patients and members. This also enables healthcare organizations to provide agents with continuous training and feedback.

Effective healthcare involves far more than clinical work; it requires providing care throughout the entire patient journey. Contact center support agents are a critical link in this chain of care. A modern, intelligent cloud-based contact center gives healthcare organizations a powerful technology platform that improves agent performance and can reduce burnout and attrition by allowing agents to focus on helping people.

About the author: Patty Hayward is the vice president of industry strategy for healthcare and life sciences at Talkdesk.