Sep 11, 2025
A groundbreaking new report from Children's HealthWatch reveals how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the way healthcare organizations connect patients to vital social services.
In their September 2025 publication, "Expanding the Continuum: Referral Platforms for Comprehensive Care Coordination," researchers spotlight an emerging generation of AI-enhanced platforms that are addressing critical workforce shortages while dramatically improving patient outcomes.
The first-generation of care delivery technology that emphasized payer/provider-to-CBO relationships with little consideration for last mile delivery of care considerations. This new iteration of technology prioritizes patient-CBO connections while reducing friction for all parties involved.
By putting patients at the center rather than healthcare providers or payers, these AI-powered platforms can simultaneously ease administrative burdens on overstretched staff and ensure patients actually receive the social services they need, creating the improved outcomes at scale that earlier systems promised but failed to deliver.
The Next Generation of Social Care Technology
The Children's HealthWatch analysis offers clear guidance for organizations considering AI-enhanced referral platforms:
Technology is a tool, not a solution: The most successful implementations recognize that AI enhances and scales human relationships rather than replacing them.
Community partnership remains essential: Platforms that treat community organizations as mere referral recipients consistently struggle with adoption. Community organizations need the infrastructure to consistently deliver the outcomes intended by their services.
Workflow integration is critical: Success depends on embedding referral activities into existing clinical processes, not creating parallel and fragmented systems.
Measure what matters: Establish outcome measures aligned with organizational mission rather than defaulting to vendor-provided metrics.
A Case Study in AI Innovation for Social Care
Among the platforms analyzed in the Children's HealthWatch report, Blooming Health stands out as a prime example of how AI can transform social care delivery.
The Numbers Tell the Story
The results documented in the Children's HealthWatch report are remarkable:
Case managers save over 10 hours per week through automated workflows
Net Promoter Score of 80 from case managers using the platform
38% average engagement response rate among partners
300% increase in engagement with social services
10% reduction in self-reported loneliness among clients
7% improvement in self-rated health
$26.5 million cost of living impact through increased social care access
The outcomes show that technology can in fact improve access to social care while reducing the burden on community organizations in delivering services. In this new paradigm, service delivery does not need to happen at the pace of number of Care Managers an organization might have or what language they speak or what technology channels members might have access to – social care in this new paradigm can be accessible as easily as tap water in every house.
How the Technology Works
Blooming Health's approach centers on four key innovations:
Workflow-Based Automation: Rather than replacing human judgment, the AI augments case managers by handling routine tasks such as educating someone about services that are available to them, screening them for their needs, finding a service provider in their community that can address their needs, or following up with them to make sure they got the care they needed. This frees up skilled professionals to focus on complex cases requiring personal attention—addressing the CBO capacity constraints that the report identifies as a major barrier to successful referral networks.
Conversational AI for Direct Patient Engagement: The platform conducts member engagements in over 80 languages, answers questions in clients' preferred languages, and provides timely information about referrals beyond traditional business hours. This direct patient engagement capability extends service availability while maintaining personalized communication and culture appropriateness, going beyond the healthcare-to-CBO connections that characterize first-generation platforms.
Predictive Engagement Monitoring: The AI identifies changes in client engagement patterns, such as when members stop attending programs, enabling proactive intervention before crises develop. This predictive capability provides the closed-loop data that healthcare organizations need to demonstrate social care impact, addressing one of the key limitations the report identifies with traditional referral systems.
Deep Integration with Healthcare Systems: Blooming Health's deep integration with Electronic Medical Records, including Epic systems, ensures that AI-generated insights and referral outcomes automatically populate clinical records without adding documentation burden for providers and case managers. No need for double entry for CBOs or Healthcare stakeholders.
These capabilities focus on providing the patient with a holistic experience that exemplifies second-generation care technology. AI handles the complexity behind the scenes while patients receive personalized, accessible support and providers get actionable insights without workflow disruption.
Transitioning to a New Generation of Social Care
As documented in the comprehensive Children's HealthWatch report, AI-powered platforms like Blooming Health are demonstrating that technology can indeed bridge critical gaps between referrals and actual service receipt. However, success requires thoughtful implementation, sustained community engagement, and realistic expectations about technology's role in addressing complex social challenges.
The 10+ hours per week that case managers save through automation isn't just about efficiency, it represents time that can be redirected toward the human connections and relationship-building that remain at the heart of effective social care and addressing complex patient needs.
In this way, AI doesn't replace the human element but amplifies it, creating more capacity for the work that truly requires a human touch.
Ready to experience second-generation social care technology? Get a demo of Blooming Health and see how our AI-powered platform can reduce friction for your patients, providers, and community partners while delivering the closed-loop data you need to demonstrate real social care impact. Contact us to learn how we're helping healthcare organizations transition from first-generation referral systems to truly integrated, patient-centered care coordination.
