{"id":26649,"date":"2025-06-21T16:57:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T11:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=26649"},"modified":"2025-06-21T17:03:50","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T11:18:50","slug":"ai-medical-receptionist-modernizing-doctor-appointments-poised-to-improve-patient-care-nationwide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/ai-medical-receptionist-modernizing-doctor-appointments-poised-to-improve-patient-care-nationwide\/","title":{"rendered":"AI medical receptionist modernizing doctor appointments, poised to improve patient care nationwide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Texas A&M teams with Humanate, an NVIDIA Inception company, to advance \u201cCassie,\u201d which uses facial recognition for more human and empathetic interactions<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

Lesley Henton*<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

A virtual medical receptionist named \u201cCassie,\u201d developed through research at Texas A&M University, is transforming the way patients interact with health care providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cassie is a digital-human assistant created by Humanate Digital<\/a>, a startup founded by three Aggies, including Dr. Mark Benden<\/a>, professor in the Texas A&M School of Public Health and director of the Center for Worker Health<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The artificial intelligence-powered avatar can speak more than 100 languages, including American Sign Language, and uses facial recognition to mimic human emotions, making interactions feel more natural and comforting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cassie is being tested in several clinics to assist with administrative tasks such as checking in patients, requesting medical records, and guiding users through paperwork. \u201cWe\u2019re not trying to replace doctors or nurses,\u201d Benden said. \u201cWe\u2019re focused on the administrative side\u2014tasks that are repetitive, time-consuming, and not the best use of a clinician\u2019s time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the 2025 Texas A&M New Ventures Competition last month<\/a>, Humanate took home the grand prize, including $35,000 in funding and multiple investment offers, for its work on the Cassie technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using Facial Recognition To Determine Patient Mood<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

A key differentiator from early research is that Cassie was developed to be emotionally responsive, using facial recognition to read the user\u2019s expressions and adjust its tone accordingly. \u201cOur goal is to provide a happy digital human to have a conversation with you. She can smile, interact, tell dad jokes\u2014even mimic your mood. But if you\u2019re on a serious topic, like a cancer diagnosis, she can become more serious, more focused,\u201d Benden said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike traditional kiosks or chatbots, Cassie offers a two-way interaction that feels more like a conversation than a transaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benden said the technology has potential applications in pediatric care\u2014Humanate is developing a cartoon-style avatar named Oliver to help children navigate medical procedures. \u201cOliver would guide a child through something that might be kind of scary and stay with them throughout, on a mobile device, for comfort and engagement,\u201d Benden said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Idea So New, Technology Had To Catch Up<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Cassie was conceived during the COVID-19 pandemic as a tool to train remote workers but has since evolved into a sophisticated AI assistant thanks to advances in large language models and a key partnership with AI technology innovator\u00a0NVIDIA<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe started this five years ago to figure out a way to train remote office workers with the same confidence and quality we would have if we had a professional trainer in the room,\u201d said Benden, who co-founded Humanate with Carlos Rodriguez, company CEO and an A&M engineering graduate; and Leslie Jebson, who earned his MBA from Mays Business School and serves as company consultant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore large language models, we had to guess what AI assistants might say and manually enter those responses,\u201d Benden said. \u201cNow, Cassie can understand various accents and multiple languages and provide more flexible and intelligent responses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodriguez said Humanate Inc. is revolutionizing the patient-to-clinician interaction. \u201cOur agentic AI technology is automating labor-intensive workflows to increase access and produce better healthcare outcomes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reducing Administrative Burdens, Empowering Health Care Facilities<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Cassie is a potential solution to a growing problem in health care: administrative overload and staffing shortages, especially in rural or underserved areas. \u201cThese are jobs that turn over very often\u2014200 to 300% in a typical year,\u201d Benden said. \u201cThey\u2019re lower paying, and most days are pretty much the same; humans don\u2019t necessarily like those kinds of jobs, and that\u2019s why turnover is high.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cassie can work 24\/7 without breaks, sick days, or distractions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Cassie may not immediately lower health care costs for patients, the technology can help clinics operate more efficiently\u2014particularly those in financially vulnerable areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of smaller clinics\u2014especially without federal money\u2014don\u2019t make sense to run as a business; you would close them,\u201d Benden said. By reducing administrative burdens and freeing up clinicians to focus on patient care, Cassie could help stretch limited resources further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think we can improve the quality of care, get more doctor-and-nurse time with the patient instead of with paperwork,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partnership With NVIDIA<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The project advanced when Humanate collaborated with NVIDIA to run large-scale simulations that enhanced Cassie\u2019s capabilities. This partnership helped move the technology from a research prototype to a deployable product. Humanate has licensed the Texas A&M-filed patent for its receptionist-focused AI, one of the early filings in the emerging field of agentic AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf that patent pans out, then we hold something that\u2019s highly significant in the field,\u201d Benden said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Texas A&M, Cassie represents more than just a technological achievement\u2014it\u2019s a testament to the university\u2019s role in fostering innovation with real-world impact. \u201cWe think health care is primed for this,\u201d Benden said. \u201cThey need to be disrupted because they\u2019re struggling to meet the needs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodriguez hopes Cassie will not only streamline operations but also improve the patient experience, especially for those who find traditional systems confusing or impersonal. \u201cWe\u2019ve had an amazing response from patients. Some of the older patients, in particular, have written to us and said, \u2018It\u2019s so much easier for me to talk to Cassie than to try to navigate confusing websites and mountains of paperwork,\u2019\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cThat\u2019s been very encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(*A news story provided by Texas A&M University Division of Marketing and Communications)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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