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<Silence> Hi everyone,

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and thank you for tuning into the
Becker's Healthcare podcast series.

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I'm Brian Zerman, a v p client Content
Strategy with Becker's Healthcare.

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Today I'm pleased to be
joined by Lance Maha,

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senior director of Industry Marketing
healthcare principal at RingCentral.

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Lance, it's great to get a
chance to speak with you again.

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Hey, thanks, Brian. It's great to be back.

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So, so let's dive right in here. Um, for,

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for folks that maybe haven't heard
you on the podcast before, can,

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can you just get us started by, by
sharing a bit about yourself, your role,

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your organization, that sort of thing?

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Absolutely.

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I've led healthcare industry
practices at four major

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communications focused vendors.

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So I focus on where communications
and collaboration solutions can have

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a direct and positive impact and
improve health service delivery,

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and most importantly, improve
the overall patient experience.

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Then currently as a leader within
RingCentral's healthcare practice,

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I work to really establish
our cloud-based communications

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platform in the industry as
it continues to pivot and

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digitally transform.

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I also work directly with our industry
solutions product management teams

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to make sure that the voice of the
customer is being heard loud and clear in

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healthcare as we take new solutions
to market. They also spend, uh,

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quite a bit of time on go to market and
also working on sales enablement with

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our national sales team as well.

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Excellent. Well, well thank you for
walking us through that background. Uh,

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I wanna start here with
a, a question about,

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about how technology is transforming
dentistry and obviously the voice of the

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patient is something you really,
you really care about, and,

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and I think technology is
transforming in dentistry,

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at least everything from procedures
to, to advancing patient centricity.

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So in your own work, what
are some of the, the,

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the top trends or innovations
that B s O leaders,

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dental practice leaders
are embracing today?

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Yeah,

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I think I'd start by just letting
everyone know that the six largest dental

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service organizations in the
country are RingCentral clients,

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and I think they represent a big shift
in this particular delivery environment.

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So what they've done is they've,

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they've all transitioned their
legacy communications to the

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centralized cloud-based service
model that RingCentral delivers,

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and they're able to do this so they
can scale patient engagement across

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their, their national
network of practices. And
collectively across these six,

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it's over 5,000 clinics.

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So this also lets each
of the individual DSOs

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manage their networks from
a single d s O location,

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but they're also able to dramatically
scale patient engagement across these

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networks.

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This also allows them to achieve
system and also cost center management

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standardization. And
this, this creates the,

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the type of e economies of scale
and operational savings that these

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large organizations with extremely
large distributed locations are,

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are looking for.

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And that's why pivoting to the
cloud is a big part of digital

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transformation and innovation
in healthcare today.

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Yeah, such a great point. Uh, uh,
getting to that, that level of scale,

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I imagine the cloud is just such like
a essential component of that. Um,

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can can you talk a little bit about why
I am curious that that is Lance and then

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wanna move to a, to a separate question
about, about artificial intelligence,

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which is of course a big hot topic,
but, um, a a any additional insights to,

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to why the cloud is so important here?

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Well, I think DSOs are
a perfect example. Uh,

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they're experiencing a lot of
growth and also consolidation.

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So as they continue to
grow their networks,

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as they continue to bring
additional practitioners

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into their D S O umbrella,

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it creates a urgency around
getting those new locations

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into their standardized environment.
And with traditional technology,

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it's extremely hard, uh,

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to get all those front and back
office systems online up and running

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and keep those newly acquired locations
and those practitioners focused on

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delivering excellent dental patient care.

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So that's a big reason why
we've been so successful,

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and that's why this type of
centralized management across

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agile site additions
across a national scope is,

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is such a great value and immediate, uh,

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benefit to DSOs when they pivot
their communications to the cloud.

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Uh, appreciate those additional
details there lads. Uh, so,

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so let's get to artificial
intelligence now, which is, uh,

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of course AI's increasingly present
in dentistry like, you know,

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much of the healthcare industry is now.

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Can can you talk a little bit about what
areas you think dental practices DSOs

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can really leverage this technology
and also ahead of implementation, uh,

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integrating AI-based solutions?

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What are some key considerations leaders
should think about that that might be

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going overlooked out there?

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Yeah, I think as we discuss
ai, it's important to put, uh,

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some framework around it in terms
of its own evolution in healthcare.

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So of course, AI is supporting
our D S L clients today,

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and the scope of its
use continues to grow.

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If we focus on the real
first wave of ai, um,

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within a communications framework,

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it was focused on supporting more
patient directed service requests,

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like scheduling, billing
inquiries, med refills,

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and these types of activities.

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And these tasks largely now can
be fulfilled via AI chatbots

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or voice authentication and
response inputs. This has, uh,

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become a really,

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really popular approach to meeting a
higher patient demand for self-directed

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engagement,

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but it's also very valuable to help
augment or even possibly replace

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traditional and static, uh,

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what we refer to as interactive
revoice or I v r front end menus

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or common auto attendant
tools that sometimes are
pretty fixed and have limited

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options. And then finally,
I would just add, uh,

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AI is also commonly utilized to,

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to route these new digital patient
messages that are generated

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during an initial chat bot interaction
between the patient and their

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practitioner. So what happens
is, is the ai, uh, digitally, uh,

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routing,

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it leverages message learning in
conjunction with ai and it understands the

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general intent of the patient inquiry,

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and then it intuitively routes
these digital messages to the right

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staff who are best suited or skilled to
address the patient inquiry and need.

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And then to address your question about,
you know, things to consider, and I'll,

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I'll share more about this in a moment,

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but as D ss o leaders
look to leverage AI in the

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cloud, I think a real critical requirement
is, is as you evaluate vendors,

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ensure that there's a deep level
of integration not only between,

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uh, your core business systems
that are voice centric,

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but make sure that platform integrates
to your real critical clinical systems

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like your, uh, electronic health record
or your practice management system.

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'cause this is where we
created a really exciting, uh,

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merger between the two that absolutely
levels up patient experience.

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So we'll, we'll talk more about
that in just a moment, but yeah,

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that's what I would share where, uh,

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where DSOs are leveraging
artificial intelligence today.

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Yeah, a a a great high level
overview of how AI is being applied,

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uh, at at DSOs dental
practices today. Um, I,

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let's let's get to sort of
the, you alluded to this
in, in your previous answer,

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but I want want to get to it
directly and drill down and,

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and hear how RingCentral really, you know,

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enables its d s O partners to leverage
these AI tools. And I would love it if,

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if you could ground this response in, in,
in some specific examples or outcomes.

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So in addition, uh, to the AI
use cases that I just described,

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DSOs also had the opportunity to
leverage the latest in conversation

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intelligence and conversation
intelligence delivers a couple critical

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capabilities. So first it, it
automatically generates notes,

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summaries and full transcripts from
patients or staff interactions.

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Then secondly,

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these captured transcripts are fluid
and can be searched via key terms

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or other insight benchmarks.
So what this does, Brian,

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is it lets DSOs let AI
track and assess patient

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sentiment and identify best practices
to repeat or obviously service

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improvement opportunities
by really just, uh,

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listening in a very intelligent
way that we never could before

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about patient, uh, input. So it's,

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it's pretty exciting to see them
leverage that new era of conversation

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intelligence that's, uh,
part of an AI engine as well.

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I imagine we're sort of just scratching
the surface here in terms of what,

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what kind of transformations this could
yield and how it could benefit patients,

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right?

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Oh, absolutely.

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And then, and then looking
ahead here, Lance, uh,

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what are some other areas where,

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where digital transformation or AI
and dentistry could really make a big

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impact for DSOs out there?

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So building upon what we've shared,

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let's transition over to a
comment i I made a moment ago,

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and that is where can providers
get even more optimization

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out of existing, uh,
technology investments?

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And so another new era of digital

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transformation that leverages AI is
integrating cloud communications within

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a provider's e H R or p m s system.

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And so this creates some really
exciting synergy between the system.

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So a good example of that is if a patient
specifies within their patient record,

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you know, via their patient portal,

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a specific preference for how they
want to be notified, say for a,

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an appointment reminder notification and
they indicate messaging by integrating

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the cloud communications platform
to this E H R or practice management

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system, we're able to see
those preferences on the
cloud communication side.

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And so that system recognizes this,

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it follows the notification preferences
and sends messages versus maybe

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a traditional voice call.
And the great thing is,

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is all this is done without any
staff intervention. So you're level,

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you're leveling up patient experience
and satisfaction levels by just simply

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letting the technology do what it's
been designed to do intelligently

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and without direct,
uh, human intervention.

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And then I'd also share another
big capability specific to

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the cloud contact center,
which is part of a a,

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a full communications
platform in the cloud,

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is the ability to pull,

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define patient data from the E H R.

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And when a patient calls their provider,

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this information is presented to the, uh,

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patient care navigator practice
representative on their

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contact center agent screen.
Once that call comes in.

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So what this does,
Brian, is it provides a,

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a richer patient care context
with some key information.

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It delivers a higher level of
insights, and then collectively,

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this is where you get that new era
of personalized patient experience.

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And then as far as just operational
benefits that dramatically reduces call

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handling times, it avoids those
very frustrating, you know,

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multiple call transfers that we've all
encountered and then optimally together

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it increases single call resolution rate.

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So there's just some tremendous
benefit about integrating the cloud

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communications platform, which
is the cloud phone system,

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but also the cloud contact center
system with these critical practice,

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uh, clinical application
systems as well. And then you,

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that enables the,

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the DSOs to get greater
optimization and value out of, uh,

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these other systems as well as
leverage their new investments in cloud

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communications.

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Yeah, and I imagine anything
that's sort of a, a, you know,

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alleviates staff burden, so to speak,
improves staff satisfaction is, uh,

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critically important right now
when you, when you consider the,

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the staffing environment in, in dentistry.
Am I thinking about that correctly?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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And then just to close out
here, Lance, I think you,

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you walked us through sort of some high
level stuff that's happening with AI and

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digital transformation and then got,
got granular for us, got super specific.

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So I, I greatly appreciate your time
as always, but before we sign off,

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is there,

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is there anything else you wanna
reemphasize for our listeners or you think

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listeners should know?

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I would just share that when we're
discussing digital innovation in

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dentistry and specifically
the, the role of ai,

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I think it's just really
fascinating how patient engagement,

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their experience and satisfaction
measurement can today

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really be measured as much by
what patients don't say directly,

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but by other inputs and self-directed
activities that have historically

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been overlooked or simply not
trackable that we can do today.

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So I think that's the real takeaway
with this type of digital innovation is,

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is it just expands the,

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the patient voice in a way
that's never been done before.

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And then it just sim simply, um,
means the DSOs need to listen and,

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and plan very productive next
steps to increase patient

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satisfaction levels from the great AI
knowledge that they're gaining from their

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cloud communication system.

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Yeah. Making sure they're leveraging that
technology to get the most out of it.

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Right. Uh, Lance, exactly. It's
been a pleasure speaking with you.

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Hey, I appreciate the opportunity
to visit with your audience, Brian.

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Thank you very much.

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Of course. Um, again, thank you Lance.

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And I'd also like to thank RingCentral
for sponsoring this episode.

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You continue to more podcasts
from Becker's Healthcare
by visiting our podcast

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page.