Healthcare Technology Advocate Mary Cain Joins Next IT as Strategic Healthcare Advisor

SPOKANE, Wash. -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Next IT, the world’s leading provider of natural language intelligent virtual assistants (IVAs), is pleased to announce the addition of Mary Cain, MPH, to its Medical Advisory Board. Cain’s focus on improving healthcare outcomes through the adoption of new, innovative technologies fits perfectly with Next IT’s vision to change the way technology interacts with the world.

“There are so many applications for virtual assistants in the realm of health and healthcare,” said Cain. “Take chronic disease, for instance. Individuals with chronic disease have so much to manage on a daily basis and need all the help they can get. Virtual assistants will be applied to scale-up the personalized services that can help drive better outcomes. Today, that kind of personalized care is only available through individual, manual attention – but virtual assistants will be available to offload some of the tasks and patient touches that today’s medical offices simply don’t have the time, or resources, to offer.”

Cain brings 20 years of experience in the strategic planning and delivery of products and services across the healthcare continuum and is tenacious in her pursuit of finding new ways to engage patients in self-care through the use of technology. The partnership will further both parties’ efforts in helping patients achieve wellness in a landscape where physicians will be an increasingly scarce resource.

“Changing the path of a healthcare system that is badly broken is no small task – but, it’s a challenge that Next IT is committed to meeting head-on,” said Victor Morrison, Next IT VP of Healthcare Markets. “Mary’s impressive background and vision for applying technology in a transformative way are extremely valuable as Next IT works to bring harmony to patients and medical professionals through the use of Virtual Health Assistants.”

Cain holds a Masters of Public Health in Health Policy and Administration with a focus in Aging from the University of California at Berkeley and was a director at Institute for the Future, a Menlo Park think tank, where she studied the effects of consumer behavior, technological innovation and information technology on health and healthcare. She built an award-winning chronic disease management program at LifeMasters Supported SelfCare and recently founded HT3, an organization dedicated to driving the creation and adoption of beneficial healthcare technologies, user-centered design and health behavior change.

About Next IT

Next IT is the world’s largest provider of natural language Intelligent Virtual Assistants that help companies deliver the perfect online customer experience. Its Intelligent Virtual Assistants combine the intimacy of 1-to-1 service that customers love with the speed and accuracy of automated self-service that scales cost-effectively. Some of the world’s largest organizations rely on Next IT for conversational customer care that boosts satisfaction, loyalty and revenue, including Aetna, Alaska Airlines, United Airlines, and the U.S. Army. Please visit www.NextIT.com for more information.