An AI assistant for your care organisation's website: fewer calls about what is already there

Many phone calls to care organisations are about things that are already on the website: how the waiting list works, what the difference is between dementia care and physical care, how big a room is. An AI assistant on the website answers exactly those questions, using the text of your own site, and refers people to a staff member when the answer is not there. It can work without personal data, and no client data is involved.

Why do people call about things that are already on the website?

The answers are often there. But a care organisation's website has to do a lot at once: locations, residential care, home care, day care, registration, jobs, news. An older person, or a son or daughter, with one concrete question has to work through all of those pages. That does not always work, so people pick up the phone.

On the other end of the line are staff who answer the same questions all day. That is not bad work, but it takes time away from the people who really need them: someone who can no longer cope at home, or a family member who needs to talk.

Which questions can a care organisation's AI assistant answer?

There is a second benefit. Because the assistant points to the right page with every answer, people also see what else you do. Someone who calls about the waiting list rarely hears that there is also day care or home care. Someone who asks on the website gets that route as well.

What the assistant does not do

An AI assistant quickly sounds as if you are going to automate everything. That is not how it works. It takes over the questions that come back every day, and the rest stays with your people.

• It gives no medical advice and does not assess a personal situation.
• It does not promise a place or put anyone on the waiting list.
• It does not replace the phone. Anyone who wants to call can still call.
• If the answer is not on the website, it refers people to a staff member.

Can an AI assistant in care work without personal data?

Yes. You can set up the assistant so that it asks nobody for a name, phone number or other details and does not capture contact details. It only answers general questions with general information. There is no connection to a client record or any other system.

• At the top it says it is an AI assistant, not a staff member. The European AI Act asks for that too.
• The welcome message says people do not need to share personal or medical information.
• Conversations are stored within the EU, so you can read along and improve the answers. If someone does type something personal, it is in that conversation.
• There is a data processing agreement, and conversations are not used to train AI models.

Why the website is a good place to start with AI in care

There is still a lot of doubt about AI in care, and that is understandable. But that is exactly why the website is a good place to start. No client data is involved, nothing needs to connect to the electronic client record, and the assistant says nothing that is not already public on your site. You can look at it first, with your own colleagues, before you decide anything.

How it works at Senior Centraal

Senior Centraal provides day care and home care in North Brabant in the Netherlands. The same questions keep coming in, often from children and informal carers who only get to it in the evening: what does it cost, does the personal budget cover it, do you also come to Uden, can my mother with dementia go here. Senior Centraal put an AI assistant on its website, filled with its own information about regions, approach and personal budgets.

When it concerns a concrete situation, the assistant hands the conversation to a staff member via live chat, with the full conversation attached. Senior Centraal also chose to ask for contact details as soon as someone wants to take a next step. That is a choice per organisation: it can also work entirely without.

“People no longer have to wait for an answer. That fits how we want to work.”