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Tampa General Hospital (TGH) entered into a partnership with Hyro to introduce voice AI agents across its patient access and call center operations, integrating the technology with its existing Epic EHR and telephony systems.
Hyro’s AI agents are designed to guide callers to the correct services and reduce manual workload for staff, contributing to faster response times and improved call handling across the system.
The first phase of the partnership centered on automated routing and appointment workflows, with additional specialty scheduling use cases planned.
The deployment, completed in under three months, marked an expansion of automated support for appointment management, scheduling, prescription queries, billing questions and MyChart assistance.
Israel Krush, CEO and cofounder of Hyro, tells MobiHealthNews that agentic AI is giving health systems the chance to redesign patient access from the ground up.
"The first shift is staffing," Krush said. "When AI agents can take a patient from ‘hello’ to full resolution–scheduling, authentication, reminders, follow-ups – your human teams can finally focus on the high-value work they’re trained for."
Another shift is intelligence: With agentic AI handling such a large share of interactions, health systems have real behavioral data to redesign workflows around.
"Instead of guessing what patients need, they can anticipate it, close gaps earlier and make access far more predictable," he said.
Krush explains that Tampa General is an example of why interoperability matters so much.
"When agentic AI can plug directly into the EHR, the telephony stack and the digital front door, you eliminate months of custom work," Krush said.
He explains the first requirement is deep, native integration with the EHR, especially Epic. For scalable deployments, the platform must speak Epic’s language directly, with governance and safeguards built in.
"Our platform needs to be connected into the broader digital ecosystem," Krush adds.
He notes health systems want AI agents that integrate seamlessly with provider data tools like Kyruus, mobile applications like Gozio, and CRMs such as Salesforce Health Cloud and Service Cloud.
"In Tampa’s case, this meant the AI agent could operate inside the same journey patients were already taking, not outside of it," Krush said.
Standards like modern APIs, FHIR and flexible orchestration layers ensure that the AI behaves consistently across multi-site and multi-specialty environments. As systems grow, merge or change vendors, that consistency becomes essential.
"In short, AI agents aren’t replacing people, they’re enabling them to work at the top of their license while giving patients an access experience that finally feels coherent," Krush said.
Hyro works with more than 40 health systems and has recently expanded its presence through partnerships with Inova Health, Baptist Health, and Sutter Health.
