AI and unified data help UChicago Medicine scale care.

Disconnected systems slowed patient support and created barriers to personalized care.

Since 1927, the University of Chicago Medicine (UChicago Medicine) has been at the forefront of medical discovery and care. Every year, the academic health system’s employees, building off the legacy of 12 affiliated Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine, provide lifesaving treatment across more than 1 million outpatient visits, 220,000 emergency department visits, and 34,000 surgeries.

As expectations for service in healthcare continue to evolve, operational inefficiencies were starting to get in the way of delivering a more connected, seamless experience outside of the clinic. “The gap between consumer-grade service and healthcare is staggering and unacceptable,” said Andrew Chang, Chief Marketing Officer. “You can order a burger in seconds, but to schedule care, you’re on hold or waiting for a call back.”

Each year, the Access Center — UChicago Medicine’s customer service hub with more than 150 representatives — fields over 2.5 million inquiries, mostly over the phone. Patients were often routed to voicemail or transferred to departments without full access to real-time information. Even simple tasks like refilling a prescription or finding parking took an average of four minutes — standard for the industry, but UChicago Medicine wanted to raise the bar. 

At the same time, leaders recognized a major opportunity to improve how they connected with patients outside of support interactions. Rather than sending broad, one-size-fits-all messages, UChicago Medicine wanted to tailor outreach based on each patient’s specific health needs, communication preferences, and life stages.

But to do that, they needed better access to their own data. “We were putting marketing into our patient’s world and hoping it found the right audience,” said Kalee Hildreth, Executive Director of Marketing Operations. “We knew we could do better reaching and serving our patients, but our systems weren’t built for that kind of precision.”

Data Cloud powers personalized outreach across every stage of the patient journey.

UChicago Medicine began by reimagining how a hospital could connect with patients before, during and after care. In just four months, the team built 100 unique, data-driven marketing segments in Data Cloud, each one tailored to specific needs, risk factors, and behaviors.

To do this, Data Cloud brings together UChicago Medicine’s connected Salesforce data —  including Health Cloud and Marketing Cloud — in real time from a range of third-party and internal data sources.  

Privacy and security were essential considerations as UChicago Medicine deployed Data Cloud. The health system handles highly sensitive information and confidential data — from patient records, to financial data and donor interactions — so every technology choice had to meet strict regulatory, legal and ethical standards. These include HIPAA, anti-kickback laws, nonprofit-specific regulations, and the University of Chicago’s own guidelines and requirements. To protect personal health information, neither Salesforce nor partners have access to data until it’s been anonymized. Plus, data is kept confidential and can’t be used for anything other than providing services to UChicago Medicine.

With a secure foundation and data unified in one place, UChicago Medicine can deliver more targeted and personalized outreach to their patients. Smarter marketing segments enable UChicago Medicine to break up broad patient groups into smaller ones based on shared attributes, like “patient is 40-45, female at birth, and needs to schedule their first mammogram." 

Segmentation also helps UChicago Medicine predict and respond to patient needs with incredible accuracy. “We can drill down to the level of folks who missed their annual primary care appointment,” said Hildreth. “And reach out with, ‘Hey, here are all the benefits of visiting your physician every year.’ We can really personalize outreach to help people understand the value of getting that care.”

To make these segments work, UChicago Medicine uses a wide range of data from demographics to clinical visits and service history, all within Data Cloud. That means messages that once went out to massive, unfocused lists like “men and women between 18 and 65” can now be swapped with meaningful, highly targeted outreach – without adding staff.

Targeted segments activated in Marketing Cloud reach patients and prospects across every channel.

Once UChicago Medicine had segments in place to help the team find the right people to talk to, the next step was reaching out. Data Cloud organized patient data from across the organization, while Marketing Cloud made it actionable for all types of engagement. Now, a patient’s recent appointment, prescription refill, or even primary location can trigger a tailored message.

And it works. “One campaign reached a 60% conversion rate,” said Chang. “And altogether UChicago Medicine was able to deliver a true ROI in less than a year.” A recent message encouraging cervical cancer screening  — targeted to patients with specific demographics and risk factors — resulted in over half of recipients taking action and scheduling a potentially life-saving appointment. 

Hyper-relevant outreach helps patients stay on top of preventive care, which is especially important in underserved communities where timely care can close health gaps and reduce long-term costs.

Agentforce will give patients timely answers on their terms, while staff gain bandwidth for in-depth service.

With a strong data foundation from Data Cloud and personalized outreach powered by Marketing Cloud, UChicago Medicine is focused on transforming nonclinical experiences using technology. With Agentforce — the agentic layer of the Salesforce Platform — they’ll bring faster, smarter, more personalized support to every patient.

“We can target specific cells to cure cancer, but across the industry, our service is so behind,” said Chang. “This is why when Agentforce was first announced, I wanted to be first in line. With Agentforce, we’re going to bring a lot more access to people who need it, on their terms.”

Knowing the majority of patients will continue to call the support line for help, UChicago Medicine can transform phone support using Agentforce Voice, which will be grounded on Data Cloud. The team is planning seven nonclinical use cases to autonomously handle appointment scheduling, prescription refills, general information like directions, and more. It’s a big step toward reducing wait times, saving support costs, easing the load on staff, and offering more seamless, compassionate care.

“There’s a whole lot of patients who are trying to schedule appointments at a time that’s convenient for them, which is typically not those 8:00 to 5:00 working hours,” said Tyler Bauer, SVP for Ambulatory Operations. “Agentforce is going to be a huge benefit for us, especially when we have the full omnichannel experience because our operations and access center will be open 24/7.”

Although UChicago Medicine doesn’t currently have chat capabilities on their website, that’s about to change. Powered by Agentforce, their first AI agent will launch on web chat, handling everyday questions like “Where should I park for my MRI?” or “Do you have a dermatology clinic?” With Agentforce managing simple FAQs, Access Center reps can focus on more complex needs, such as helping a patient recently diagnosed with cancer schedule multiple appointments and navigate insurance.

“We can use data to track when one of our parking lots is full,” said Chang. “How cool would it be if, 30 minutes before your appointment, you got an alert from your hospital saying, ‘Parking A garage is full, Parking B has plenty of space.’ This has nothing to do with the exam room, yet has a huge impact on your healthcare experience. This is what Agentforce can do.”

UChicago Medicine chose Salesforce for its ability to scale alongside their growth. Salesforce offered a deeply unified platform where Health Cloud, Data Cloud, and Agentforce all work together seamlessly and securely, protecting sensitive and confidential health information. UChicago Medicine also ensures that Agentforce only uses nonclinical data, and AI agents never diagnose, answer clinical questions, or collect sensitive patient details — maintaining compliance, confidentiality and trust. And with just a few clicks, UChicago Med can build, monitor, and adjust those guardrails whenever needed.

That integration has made it easier for UChicago Medicine to scale quickly without having to stitch together tools that weren’t built to connect. “Having all these products together has opened up a lot of opportunities we never had before,” said Blaze Distefano, Executive Director of Performance Marketing. “Unified data and tight segments help us show patients they can get all their care at UChicago Medicine. We’re connecting with patients in a way that increases retention, improves their health, and develops our brand.”

Agentforce meets those standards and comes with built-in guardrails. As Chang put it, “I think it would be really cool if Salesforce was one of the major reasons healthcare changed.” And for UChicago Medicine, that change is already in motion.