
The Future of Scheduling in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
From PAC's All Access Pass Podcast by Elizabeth Woodcock
December 15, 2025 · 36 min · Season 1 · Episode 37
About this episode
This episode explores how AI is transforming scheduling in healthcare and the evolving role of human schedulers.
AI may automate the “what” of scheduling, but the “why” still belongs to humans. In this episode of All Access Pass, host Elizabeth Woodcock sits down with Aramis Cherrington , Vice President of Patient Access at RWJBarnabas Health to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping the work of access centers, shifting them from reactive call hubs to predictive, omni-channel orchestrators of the patient journey. They discuss why AI will likely handle most routine transactions while elevating human schedulers into empathetic care navigators, what it means to design access around the patient rather than the process, and how traditional metrics like abandonment rate and average speed of answer fall short of capturing true accessibility. In this episode, we cover AI’s impact on scheduler roles, the rise of omnichannel digital front doors, new outcome- and experience-based access metrics, and why investing equally in people and platforms is essential to delivering frictionless, timely, connected care.
People in this episode
Host: Elizabeth Woodcock
Guest: Aramis Cherrington
Topics covered
- artificial intelligence
- scheduling
- patient access
- healthcare technology
- omnichannel care
- human interaction in healthcare
Keywords
- AI scheduling
- patient journey
- access centers
- care navigators
- digital front doors
- access metrics
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: RWJBarnabas Health
More episodes of PAC's All Access Pass Podcast
- Access in the Wild: Conversations from the Future of Access · May 26, 2026 · 19 min
- Spotlight on OSU Wexner Medical Center: Clarity is Everything · April 15, 2026 · 29 min
- The Rise of Ambulatory Capacity Management · March 15, 2026 · 31 min
- Seeing Access Through a Shared Lens: Using the Patient Access Collaborative's Group Assessment to Understand the Current State · February 15, 2026 · 38 min
- From Cost Center to Value Engine: Reframing Patient Access as Enterprise Strategy · January 15, 2026 · 31 min
- Beyond the Waitlist: Rethinking Demand and Flow in Healthcare · November 15, 2025 · 44 min
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