Salesforce plans to add an artificial intelligence tool to help providers deal with administrative burdens such as prior authorization, the customer relationship management company said Friday.
More tech companies are developing healthcare-specific AI agents, which are applications that use the technology to handle time intensive functions. Salesforce's set of AI agents, called Agentforce For Health, will focus on tasks related to patient access, public health and clinical research.
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The company is developing an AI agent to help providers schedule appointments, match patients to preferred clinicians and verify someone's insurance benefits. The tool also can also summarize patient visits and check prioritization status, said Amit Khanna, Salesforce’s senior vice president and general manager of health.
The features will be available to customers in June, Khanna said. Some functions are already being tested by customers including Chicago-based Rush University Medical Center.
The new AI tools are another indication of Salesforce deepening its push in healthcare. The company has grown its customer base over the last ten years, asking health systems to look beyond the electronic health record and use customer relationship management software.
“A doctor or a cardiologist will always be in the EHR putting prescriptions in,” Khanna said. “But if you look at ancillary staff, whether it’s a care coordinator, care managers, [administrators], call center agents, all those people who do the follow up care, they’re 100% in the realm of Salesforce.”
Along with creating AI agents for improving patient access, Salesforce is developing a clinical research and development tool that can match patients to clinical trials. Khana anticipated the product would primarily be used by academic medical centers and pharmaceutical companies.
Salesforce is the latest tech company to jump on this trend. Earlier this month, healthcare technology and data company Innovaccer said it planned to launch a group of AI agents focused on similar use cases.
