Advancing Acute Care and the Patient Experience with AI Voice Agents
Monday, August 24, 2026
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The speaker reports that in their study, a high conversion rate of patients willing to talk to the AI voice agent results in a note being entered into the electronic health record, indicating strong patient acceptability.
“the first observation is that overwhelmingly if a patient is willing to talk to the ai that is say if they're willing to join and study uh a note will end up in the electronic health record so that's the first thing like there is a very high um conversion rate in our study of people who come through the study and then have something put in”
The speaker reports that the biggest barrier to implementing AI voice agents in health systems is organizational decision-making around valuing patient voice, not technical feasibility, based on their experience with a small team project requiring significant effort and domain knowledge.
The speaker reports that the voice agent system runs on a hospital lab server and deploys to emergency department patients via laptop or iPad with microphone, requiring a quiet space to protect patient privacy during naturalistic conversations.
Jesse chats with Dr. Adrian Haimovich, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of the Division of Artificial Intelligence at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Dr. Smit Desai, Assistant Professor at Northeastern University and leader of the Conversational Human-AI Interactions Lab (CHAI Lab). Together, they discuss the potential for AI-powered voice agents in emergency departments and other acute care settings, the challenges these tools are designed to address, why voice may offer advantages over text-based interactions, the technical architecture behind AI voice agents and how it compares with off-the-shelf solutions, the future of voice agents in acute care, the potential for patient-authored notes, and much more. Jesse also reflects on this key headline: The OpenAI Foundation commits $100 million to an initiative aimed at using AI to expand access to advanced medical care, particularly for uninsured and underserved patients. In our Resource Link segment, we list one valuable resource you might want to check out. To view this link, subscribe, or find out more information about our podcast, visit www.HealthcareAIPioneers.com. Want to be a sponsor, marketing partner, or guest, or provide feedback on the podcast? Email us at Info@HealthcareAIPioneers.com. Music by Turning Pages from Pixabay. Jesse chats with Dr. Adrian Haimovich, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of the Division of Artificial Intelligence at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Dr. Smit Desai, Assistant Professor at Northeastern University and leader of the Conversational Human-AI Interactions Lab (CHAI Lab). Together, they discuss the potential for AI-powered voice agents in emergency departments and other acute care settings, the challenges these tools are designed to address, why voice may offer advantages over text-based interactions, the technical architecture behind AI voice agents and how it compares with off-the-shelf solutions, the future of v
Show transcript excerpt
Jesse chats with Dr. Adrian Haimovich, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of the Division of Artificial Intelligence at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Dr. Smit Desai, Assistant Professor at Northeastern University and leader of the Conversational Human-AI Interactions Lab (CHAI Lab). Together, they discuss the potential for AI-powered voice agents in emergency departments and other acute care settings, the challenges these tools are designed to address, why voice may offer advantages over text-based interactions, the technical architecture behind AI voice agents and how it compares with off-the-shelf solutions, the future of voice agents in acute care, the potential for patient-authored notes, and much more. Jesse also reflects on this key headline: The OpenAI Foundation commits $100 million to an initiative aimed at using AI to expand access to advanced medical care, particularly for uninsured and underserved patients. In our Resource Link segment, we list one valuable resource you might want to check out. To view this link, subscribe, or find out more information about our podcast, visit www.HealthcareAIPioneers.com. Want to be a sponsor, marketing partner, or guest, or provide feedback on the podcast? Email us at Info@HealthcareAIPioneers.com. Music by Turning Pages from Pixabay.