Last week, our team attended the Opal Summit for Nursing and Patient Experience leaders. Between hosting roundtables, connecting with attendees, and listening in on sessions, one theme stood out above all others: AI, and what’s next for healthcare. As highlighted in Healthcare IT Today’s recent article on the state of AI in healthcare, the conversation is shifting from “What can AI do?” to “How does it help care teams deliver better experiences?”
Healthcare leaders are eager to understand how AI can actually help their teams and patients. The conversations we had were honest, forward-thinking, and incredibly consistent across organizations of all sizes.
Here’s what we heard most often from leaders like you:
- Faster identification of patient concerns — getting to the “why” behind feedback sooner.
- More conversational depth in outreach — moving beyond yes/no surveys to real dialogue.
- Expanded communication channels — including voice-based interactions that meet patients where they are.
- Ambient listening — reducing documentation burden and surfacing insights directly from patient conversations.
At CipherHealth, these themes align directly with where we’re headed. Here’s what’s already live today, and what’s next on the horizon:
What’s Available Today
AI Insights: Automatically summarizes patient feedback from rounding so staff know where to act first.
Conversational AI: Supports free-text responses and multiple languages, allowing patients to share feedback in their own words.
What’s Coming Soon
Ambient Listening (in beta): Captures and summarizes real-time conversations, with seamless integration into clinical workflows.
As Healthcare Business Today recently pointed out, AI without patient and workflow context risks adding noise instead of clarity. The next generation of AI must be built on context and understanding not just what’s being said, but who’s saying it, when, and why.
Outcomes predictions:
The takeaway from Opal? Healthcare leaders aren’t asking if AI will transform care, they’re asking how. Our role is to help make that transformation meaningful, responsible, and grounded in what matters most: better experiences for patients and staff alike.
