Transforming Patient Care, Engagement, and Lead Quality with an Empathetic, AI-Powered Agent
The Problem
Missed Opportunities to Connect with Patients in Need of Mental Healthcare Services
Potomac Psychiatry encountered challenges in reaching and converting qualified digital leads, hindering their ability to reach more patients who needed their Root Cause Psychiatry services. Despite enjoying a fruitful collaboration on inbound content, they realized that their technical blog articles—while validating the practice’s thought leadership—were too advanced for the intended audience to understand and were not generating leads.
What was missing was the connection between how this thought leadership would translate into superior patient care and result in better, faster recovery at less cost. This left potential patients without an understanding of how the practice’s specialized expertise would solve their unique challenges.
Recognizing this issue, Potomac Psychiatry turned to AI as a solution to offer more personalized and empathetic interactions. Motivated by a strong desire to improve mental health outcomes, Bruce Alan Kehr, MD believed AI could deliver the timely and unique responses necessary to build trust and guide patients toward the care they need. After thoroughly evaluating potential partners, he chose SmartBug Media, drawn by our consultative approach and deep AI expertise.
What particularly impressed me was SmartBug Canada’s extensive background in AI, how long they’d been doing it, and the other projects they’ve worked on ... They didn’t pitch generic recommendations, but very specific, tactical ones that aligned with our goals and vision.
Our Solution
Building Trust and Increasing Lead Conversions with a HIPAA-Compliant AI Agent Integrated into HubSpot
- SmartBug developed Dr. Holo, an AI-powered chatbot, to foster trust and build connections with potential Potomac Psychiatry patients.
- Dr. Holo provides relevant information and qualifies leads through targeted questions and customized, curated answers to guide potential patients toward appropriate care.
- Built with GPT-4, the HIPAA-compliant chatbot integrates with HubSpot, improving lead generation while ensuring patient-centered care.
To address Potomac Psychiatry's challenges, SmartBug kickstarted a custom project to develop Dr. Holo—an AI-powered agent designed to foster trust and establish connections from the outset. Named after the Greek word "holos," meaning holistic, Dr. Holo embodies Potomac Psychiatry’s commitment to a comprehensive, root-cause approach to mental health.
Featured prominently on the homepage, Dr. Holo’s dual purpose is clear: to provide potential patients with timely, relevant information while qualifying leads through targeted questions and uniquely personal conversations. This approach ensures users receive the right content at the right moment, based upon situation and empathy-mapping their condition, guiding them toward the care they need.
SmartBug Canada’s AI solutions team utilized three different large language models (LLMs) to create an agent capable of engaging patients in a sensitive and empathetic manner. They established clear guidelines, undertook rigorous training with curated scientific information and information from the Potomac Psychiatry website, and conducted extensive testing to ensure potential patients would receive accurate and helpful responses.
SmartBug Canada integrated Dr. Holo into Potomac Psychiatry’s electronic health record (EHR) system, enabling the practice to use 11,400 patient records to train the AI agent. Dr. Holo was also designed to be HIPAA-compliant and integrate seamlessly with HubSpot’s Sales Hub, enabling real-time transfer of qualified leads to Potomac Psychiatry’s sales team. This solution not only enhanced lead generation and conversion rates but also perfectly aligned with the clinic's mission to offer empathetic, patient-centered care.
Enhanced Engagement
Engagement time on the site increased by 139%.In fact, there has been a 115% increase in conversations with Dr. Holo since implementation, with 170 conversations in June and 365 in September.
Stronger Referrals
Professional referrals increased by 123%. Potomac Psychiatry’s referral partners—fellow mental health clinicians—use Dr. Holo as a powerful tool to help vet whether patients are a good fit for their practice.
Improved Conversions
With Dr. Holo, you're getting an entire suite of specialists on your team to support your mental health, benefiting from the work of countless scientists ... This isn't just a one-on-one transaction; we're transforming mental health delivery with an advanced decision support system. Unlike the typical practice, where patients receive standard advice, here you get curated insights based on research that would take a thousand lifetimes for any psychiatrist to read.
Dr. Holo brings the benefit of hundreds of thousands of scientific articles tailored to each patient’s specific needs ... The decision support tool results are so compelling in helping our patients that we have featured them in a series of blogs on the Potomac Psychiatry website. We plan to license Dr. Holo to other behavioral health practices to help them achieve better clinical outcomes along with higher rates of return on their marketing spend.
