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Every family has lived it: the moments that test patience, trust, and communication all at once. Not the medical emergencies — but everything around them. The unanswered call. The missing update. The “no one knows who to ask.”
At Bits & Pretzels 2025, Europe’s leading founders’ festival, NFON brought this everyday frustration to the main stage and showed how AI-powered communication can turn chaos into calm.
In the expert session “From Endless Waits to Instant Answers – Fixing the Admin Gap in Healthcare Communication,” Jana Richter, EVP AI & Innovation at NFON, shared a deeply personal story. Joined by Aljoscha Niazi-Shahabi, Managing Director of botario, and moderated by Stefania Popa, NFON Go to Market Strategy Lead, the conversation explored how communication failures in healthcare — not medical errors — often define how care is experienced.
When Communication Becomes the Hardest Part of Care
Jana began not with data, but with a photo of her mother. After a sudden hospitalization, her family dealt not with a medical issue, but rather with communication issues.
“The medical care was excellent,” Jana Richter recalled. “But we constantly had to ask the same questions — when can we visit, what’s next, where is she now?
We called departments, social services, insurance, and still had no answers.”
Each unanswered question added stress to an already emotional time. And every repeated call took time away from the professionals who should have been focused on care, not coordination.
“A brain surgeon shouldn’t have to pick up the phone to tell me visiting hours,” Jana Richter said. “He should be doing surgery. But because there’s no clear communication flow, he ends up doing both.”
This is what NFON calls the admin gap — the space where critical information gets lost between departments, tools, and people. It’s invisible in patient files, but it defines the experience.
Solving the Admin Gap: AI That Speaks Human
So how do we fix it?
The answer isn’t more people — it’s smarter communication.
As Aljoscha Niazi-Shahabi explained, AI can handle the administrative side of care without replacing the human connection.
“We have the technology today,” he said. “AI assistants can understand the question, identify intent, access systems, and give the right answer, on any channel, in any language.”
That means families can get answers instantly, whether through voice, chat, WhatsApp, or email. Questions like “What are the visiting hours?” or “Can I schedule a call with the doctor?” can be handled automatically and safely, verified by identity checks and smart routing.
During the live demo, the audience saw the Vitalia voice assistant in action at a fictional rehabilitation center, handling requests from parking information to repair issues and doctor appointments.
The AI didn’t just respond, it managed the flow: detecting intent, logging the issue, routing it to the right system, and confirming everything by message.
Even late at night, the system kept working, proof that automation doesn’t mean losing humanity, it means gaining reliability.
Beyond Healthcare: A Universal Challenge
Healthcare makes the pain visible, but the same problem exists everywhere.
Every industry has its version of unanswered questions:
In retail: “Where’s my order?”
In logistics: “Can I re-route my delivery?”
In utilities: “How do I send my meter reading?”
In public services: “Which documents do I need?”
As Aljoscha put it:
“It’s always the same pattern: detect, route, answer, hand over. The content changes, but the need for clarity doesn’t.”
NFON’s and botario’s solutions already power voicebots and chatbots that connect seamlessly with contact centers and cloud telephony, ensuring every customer, patient, or citizen gets an answer, regardless of channel or language.
The result:
For customers: No more chasing. Clear answers, every time.
For teams: Less repetition, more focus on real work.
For organizations: Efficiency, transparency, and trust.
Where Voice Meets Vision
The session closed on a powerful note.
NFON’s message wasn’t about technology for technology’s sake. It was about empathy through efficiency, freeing people to do what truly matters.
“Don’t automate the patient care,” Jana Richter said. “Automate everything around it.”
And that’s exactly what NFON does: combining AI with communication to help organizations work smarter, serve better, and build stronger relationships.
Because when the systems talk to each other, people finally can too.
Learn more about NFON’s AI-powered business communication solutions: www.nfon.com
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