New research from Hyro and Pixel Health reveals a major gap between provider priorities and patient experience, despite 100% of providers saying improving access is a priority.
Hyro, the leading Responsible AI Agent Platform for healthcare, together with Pixel Health, a trusted healthcare IT consultancy that helps health systems improve patient access and experience, today released the results of new research on the adoption of AI solutions by health systems across the U.S. The report indicates a significant disconnect between provider communication strategies and patient expectations. While 91% of healthcare providers have integrated AI into their workflows, the 2026 State of Patient Communications report reveals that 72% of patients struggle to access care, and the majority have abstained from seeing their healthcare provider because it was too difficult to make an appointment. Furthermore, a stark divide in proactive communication exacerbates these care gaps, with only 25% of patients reporting effective follow-ups compared to the 56% of providers who believe they are delivering them.
The study, conducted by Wakefield Research, surveyed 200 healthcare IT executives and 800 patients who had recently interacted with their health system to map the friction points within the modern patient journey. Despite massive investments in emerging technologies, well-intentioned digital access efforts often leave patients navigating fragmented and confusing care journeys. The research identifies several areas where provider strategy and patient reality diverge:
- The Access Gap: While 100% of surveyed healthcare executives identify overcoming access barriers as a strategic priority, 51% of patients have abandoned the search for care specifically because the appointment scheduling process was too complex.
- The Proactivity Mismatch: 51% of patients believe their long-term health outcomes would improve if their providers used proactive digital outreach. Yet, preventive care outreach highlights a clear misalignment in execution. While 67% of providers conduct multiple outreaches to remind patients about preventive appointments, the majority of patients (55%) prefer a single outreach, demonstrating a stark disconnect between provider efforts and patient preferences.
- The Technology Readiness Gap: In a significant disconnect between perception and reality, 89% of patients believe their primary provider is up to date with regards to current technologies and solutions. However, one-third (33%) of providers admit their legacy workflows are too outdated to effectively integrate with AI, stalling the engine of digital transformation behind the scenes.
- The Trust Deficit: Although 97% of providers believe their AI systems are designed with the patient’s best interests in mind, only 69% of patients agree. This trust gap is most pronounced in data security, where 82% of patients still trust human interaction over AI and algorithms to protect their personal health information.
“You cannot solve today’s access crisis with yesterday’s fragmented systems. This report confirms the challenge that we tackle daily while working with health systems: patient drop-off is driven by the overwhelming friction of disjointed patient communications. But a clear shift is happening in the industry,” said Israel Krush, CEO and Co-Founder at Hyro. “Forward-thinking organizations now recognize that agnostic, off-the-shelf automation and AI agents aren’t enough to handle healthcare-specific complexities. They are embracing production-grade, agentic AI built specifically for this environment. At Hyro, our Responsible AI Agent Platform turns complex routing and scheduling into seamless conversations that actually resolve patient requests. We aren’t just improving call center metrics; we’re removing the friction that stands between a patient and their health while driving true operational efficiency.”
“Health systems aren’t struggling because they lack data or digital tools—they’re struggling because patients still experience those tools as fragmented and hard to use,” said Barbara Casey, President, Strategy and Transformation at Pixel Health. “This research validates what we see on the ground every day: if scheduling, follow-up, and basic questions aren’t simple and consistent across channels, patients delay or abandon care. By pairing Hyro’s responsible AI agents with our frontline workflow and change management expertise, we help organizations turn AI from a point solution into an integrated access strategy that actually improves patient experience and operational efficiency.”
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