Allina Health Deploys “Alli” AI Agent to Enhance Patient Call Experience

Story BySaloni Tyagi

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1 month ago

Allina Health Deploys “Alli” AI Agent to Enhance Patient Call Experience

Alli handles appointment-related tasks, but Allina Health plans to expand its capabilities to include medication refills, physician and location searches, and responses to nonclinical inquiries.

Minneapolis-based Allina Health has launched an AI-powered virtual assistant named “Alli” to improve patients' appointment management and interaction with the health system.

The AI agent is powered by SoundHound’s Amelia conversational AI platform and is designed to reduce the workload on Allina Health’s customer experience representatives.

The AI agent, now active within the organization’s 12-hospital customer experience center, integrates directly with the electronic health record (EHR) to authenticate patients, eliminating the need to wait on hold for basic services.

Currently, Alli handles appointment-related tasks, but Allina Health plans to expand its capabilities to include medication refills, physician and location searches, and responses to nonclinical inquiries.

“One of our key goals is to make sure that we’re providing a market-leading patient experience,” David Ingham, DO, Allina Health Chief Information Officer, said in a press release.

“Alli is an extension of our team, and we’re excited to have her on board to streamline operations, reduce wait times, and deliver a faster, more seamless experience for our patients,” he added.

The health system reported that since the introduction of Alli, average call durations have dropped by 5 to 10 seconds, and 80% of calls are now answered in under 45 seconds.

Alli is integrated with Allina Health’s electronic medical records, enabling it to identify and authenticate callers instantly.

The AI currently handles appointment scheduling, but future capabilities include managing medication refills, locating physicians and facilities, and addressing non-clinical questions without requiring patients to wait on hold.

"Long wait times and administrative complexity can be a huge source of stress for patients," said Michael Anderson, Executive Vice President of Enterprise AI at SoundHound AI.

"We are proud to partner with Allina Health on this important digital transformation. The organization is taking a forward-thinking approach by integrating AI to support patients with immediate, personalized assistance," he added.

SoundHound provides healthcare organizations with AI agents leveraging the latest conversational and generative AI technology. These AI agents are HIPAA-compliant and available across any voice- or chat-based channel to answer patient questions and automate self-service tasks through natural-language conversations.

The launch follows SoundHound’s recent release of Amelia 7.0, a voice-enabled Agentic AI platform. This technology employs Agentic+, a proprietary multi-process framework that coordinates the actions of multiple AI agents.