Communicate detailed medical information to patients or family members
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
Software drafts well and sends at volume, and vertical support agents now resolve a large share of inbound questions end to end. What does not transfer is the relationship, and the judgment about when a message should not be sent at all.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Routine communication and explanation |
| Jobs that do it | 15 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Vertical agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Interpreting the Meaning of Information for Others (4.A.4.a.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 15 occupations that perform it.
- Provide patients with proposed treatment plans and cost estimates.
- Provide information and advice regarding drug interactions, side effects, dosage, and proper medication storage.
- Inform patients and refer to appropriate practitioners when diagnosis reveals findings outside physical therapy.
- Discuss illnesses and treatments with patients and family members.
- Present clients with information required to make informed health care and treatment decisions.
- Provide patients with information needed to promote health, reduce risk factors, or prevent disease or disability.
- Inform patients or families of neurological diagnoses and prognoses, or benefits, risks and costs of various treatment plans.
- Communicate examination results or diagnostic information to referring physicians, patients, or families.
- Provide technical information about test results to physicians, family members, or researchers.
- Communicate test results or technical information to patients, physicians, family members, or researchers.
- Discuss medical health of pets with clients, such as post-operative status.
- Educate patients on ophthalmic medical procedures, conditions of the eye, and appropriate use of medications.
- Provide counseling to patient and family members by providing information, education, or reassurance.
- Inform patients of how to prepare and supply birth sites.
- Answer inquiries concerning the progress of medical cases, within the limits of confidentiality laws.
- Collaborate with patients to plan for future health care needs or to coordinate transitions and referrals.
- Discuss testing options and the associated risks, benefits and limitations with patients and families to assist them in making informed decisions.
- Provide information about the physical and emotional processes involved in the pregnancy, labor, birth, and postpartum periods.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for routine communication and explanation, and what it costs.
Drafting replies costs nothing beyond the assistant you already pay for. Only move to a support agent billed per resolution once the inbound volume is large enough that the per-resolution price beats the hour it takes you.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
15 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Acute Care Nurses
- Clinical Nurse Specialists
- Cytogenetic Technologists
- Genetic Counselors
- Medical and Clinical Laboratory Technologists
- Medical Transcriptionists
- Midwives
- Neurologists
- Nurse Practitioners
- Ophthalmic Medical Technologists
- Orthodontists
- Pharmacists
- Physical Therapists
- Radiologists
- Veterinary Technologists and Technicians
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Explain medical information to patients or family members”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.