Qualtrics & Stanford boost patient care with new AI agents

Qualtrics has expanded its collaboration with Stanford Health Care to develop artificial intelligence agents that aim to reduce administrative demands and improve patient access, coordination, and engagement.

The new AI agents, built on the Qualtrics XM Platform, are designed to deliver predictive insights as timely and targeted actions, integrating these interventions directly into healthcare providers' workflows. The initiative is intended to help clinicians devote more time to patient care by embedding proactive, empathetic interventions that relieve some of the coordination and operational burdens commonly faced by healthcare teams.

Focus on patient-provider connection

According to both organisations, the collaboration has placed particular emphasis on strengthening the core provider-patient relationship.

By automating a range of administrative and coordination tasks, the AI agents allow clinicians and teams to focus on direct interactions with patients, while also improving operational efficiency.

"Today's leading companies make every connection count with their customers and employees, and AI agents are a leap forward in what's possible with experience management," said Zig Serafin, CEO at Qualtrics.

"This collaboration – which combines Qualtrics' deep human understanding with Stanford's clinical and operational leadership – is a pivotal moment for the healthcare industry that will elevate how providers manage and deliver their patient and caregiver experience at unprecedented scale."

David Entwistle, President and CEO of Stanford Health Care, also underscored the importance of preserving trust in the healthcare experience.

"Trust is built when patients feel truly seen, heard, and cared for," said Entwistle.

"By developing AI that supports our teams and aligns with the way we deliver care, we can protect the time and attention that positively fuels the provider-patient relationship, while meeting people's needs in the moment, every time."

AI agents designed for practical challenges

The collaboration targets some of the more complex and high-impact challenges in contemporary healthcare delivery.

The AI agents are equipped to translate unified patient and operational data into actionable steps that improve patient access, enhance coordination, and foster engagement. Human supervisors oversee the agents, which interact with care teams and patients in proactive and context-aware ways.

Examples of tasks the agents can perform include predicting when patients are at risk of missing appointments and arranging transportation or telehealth alternatives; identifying language barriers and facilitating connections to interpreters or specialised resources; addressing delays in prescription fulfilment; ensuring that patients receive consistent instructions from different departments; and linking patients to social resources such as housing or transportation when such needs arise.

These interventions are embedded directly into operational workflows, reducing the window between identifying potential issues and resolving them, with the intention of avoiding patient setbacks and maintaining the integrity of the provider-patient relationship.

Combining data for tailored support

The AI agents draw upon Qualtrics' repository of industry-specific data, including operational and clinical information, as well as structured and unstructured feedback from sources such as call centre transcripts and surveys.

The integration of this data with insights into human experiences is designed to ensure AI interactions are empathetic and foster trust.

"The future of the patient experience is precision – knowing not just what a patient needs, but when and how to act on it," said Alpa Vyas, SVP and Chief Patient Experience and Operational Performance Officer at Stanford Health Care. "With this solution, we can proactively resolve the issues that cause friction for patients and teams alike, and do it in ways that are measurable, scalable, and respectful of the human relationships at the heart of care."

Extending previous collaboration

The expanded partnership builds on previous work between Qualtrics and Stanford Health Care. Since 2021, Stanford Health Care has utilised Qualtrics' platform to improve experiences for both patients and providers by capturing and analysing feedback across multiple channels and deploying AI capabilities to predict needs and behaviours. The new phase of collaboration extends these approaches with the development of modular solutions that are integrated with electronic medical records and designed to scale to other health systems.

Both organisations state that these tools will support a model of care where patient experience metrics, access and equity are considered inseparable from clinical outcomes, and that the ability to go from data to actionable insights is both seamless and measurable.

The collaboration is expected to play a central role in Stanford Health Care's wider patient experience programme, as well as supporting broader adoption of similar approaches in the wider healthcare sector.