Microsoft Copilot Studio is a platform for building conversational AI assistants that can answer questions, guide users to information and automate simple interactions. Organisations use Copilot Studio to create website assistants, service agents and internal copilots that draw on approved knowledge sources to provide consistent responses.
How Pacific Radiology is improving patient experience with an AI powered assistant built on Microsoft Copilot Studio
Pacific Radiology is part of RHCNZ Medical Imaging Group, New Zealand’s leading private radiology provider. With more than 70 clinics and three trusted brands (Auckland Radiology, Bay Radiology, and Pacific Radiology) the group supports thousands of patients every week through moments that are often emotional, uncertain, and deeply significant in their healthcare journey.
One of RHCNZ’s core values is “Patients are our why”. It is a simple idea, but a powerful one. It means that every interaction, from the scan itself to the moments leading up to it, should feel as easy, clear, and supported as possible.
In today’s digital world, patients expect clarity, speed, and consistency. That expectation does not begin in the clinic. It often starts online. Finding the right location, understanding how to prepare, knowing what to bring, or checking whether a referral is required are all questions that shape their confidence and readiness before the appointment.
Across the regions, RHCNZ contact centres were handling high volumes of these practical questions. RHCNZ saw both a need and an opportunity to make things easier for patients long before they reached a clinic and chose the Pacific Radiology brand to lead the way with the introduction of an AI powered website assistant.
The project was led by Jesse Thorpe, working alongside colleagues from Customer Experience, the Contact Centre teams and marketing, whose insight into patient needs shaped every stage of the design.
Making practical information clearer and easier to find
The focus shifted to creating a clearer and easier way for patients to access practical information. The aim was simple. People should be able to understand how to prepare, what to expect, and where to go without searching through multiple website pages or needing to call a clinic.
This was never about clinical advice. That guidance will always come from clinicians. It was about introducing a digital experience that supported the everyday moments around an appointment, from parking and preparation to questions about referrals and availability.
Website assistants were becoming more common, and Microsoft Copilot Studio had matured into a secure and tightly controlled platform suitable for non-clinical use. As Copilot was already part of the group’s technology stack, it offered a way to provide easier access to information through an AI assistant that remained aligned with RHCNZ’s patient-first values.
With the direction set, RHCNZ partnered with Fusion5 to design and build a digital assistant that would sit naturally within their Pacific Radiology website and support patients with clear, trustworthy information whenever they needed it.
Designing a digital assistant that feels calm, helpful, and safe
The project began with careful planning. The emotional context of medical imaging shaped every decision. Patients may be excited, anxious, worried, or simply unsure, and the digital assistant needed to recognise this in every interaction. The team focused on three core principles.
The tone needed to be calm, supportive, and easy to understand, reflecting the kind of guidance a helpful staff member would offer rather than the voice of a technical tool.
The assistant would never give medical advice or interpret results. It would use only approved website content and supporting documents. Clear messaging and escalation prompts ensured that if someone needed more urgent or specialised medical support, they were directed to the right place.
Every response needed to mirror the guidance a patient would receive from any Pacific Radiology clinic or contact centre.
With those principles in place, the team mapped out around 20 key topics, ranging from parking and preparation to bookings, ACC related information, and clinic locations. Logic was built in to ensure the assistant could narrow answers by region and clinic. The aim was always the same, give people the right information without friction or frustration.
Building together with care and learning
Testing became one of the strengths of the project. Internal staff from contact centres and clinics were invited to ask the questions they hear every day, exposing gaps and helping refine responses. Small but important patterns emerged, including how differently people ask the same question and how a single unexplained acronym in a background document could lead to confusion.
Testing also included comparing the assistant’s responses with how a staff member would respond, helping the team identify any gaps or inconsistencies.
The design and testing work was as much about understanding patients’ needs as it was about technology.”
Behind the scenes, the new Pacific Radiology website required additional work to ensure content could be indexed in formats accessible to the assistant. Through testing, the team realised that making the digital assistant stand-out on the website was an important part of driving adoption.
Training sessions equipped internal staff to maintain and manage the assistant themselves, ensuring future updates could keep pace with changes to services, clinics, and patient needs.
What emerged from this concentrated period of design and testing was Radi, an AI powered virtual assistant accessed through the Pacific Radiology website.
A small step with meaningful early impact
Radi went live a month after Pacific Radiology’s new website launch. In its early months, it was handling between 1000 - 1200 conversations each month, surfacing clear themes in what patients were looking for and where they needed more clarity.
The deployment of Radi has been about learning and iterating.
Embedding a digital assistant on our public website is an important step in adopting emerging technologies. Radi provides a great starting point, with room for refinement and future enhancements."
Microsoft Copilot Studio now provides the team with data that was not previously available. It shows the detail of individual conversations, including the accuracy of responses, the common questions being asked, and how people engage with the assistant.
We can clearly see it is helping, both in the quality of responses and in directing people to the right information. The data helps us understand what is, and isn’t, working and gives us a roadmap for what to focus on next.”
1. Data and insights
Radi is capturing valuable information about what patients look for and what they struggle to find. This visibility is helping the team refine website content and identify where further support may be needed.
2. Fewer avoidable calls
While phone remains the primary channel for patient interaction, Radi is already absorbing many of the common, repeated questions that previously defaulted to the contact centre. The focus is to continue increasing the percentage of self-service interactions while always maintaining phone support for those who want or need it.
3. A modern digital experience
In a sector where digital user experience has often lagged consumer expectations, Radi represents a meaningful step forward.
People increasingly rely on mobile devices and expect fast, seamless access to information. Radi helps us deliver that support."
Perhaps most importantly, Radi has given Pacific Radiology a deeper view of the moments where people feel uncertain. These insights will guide future improvements and support the broader aim of making every part of the patient journey easier to navigate.
Looking ahead
RHCNZ sees the rollout of Radi at Pacific Radiology as the start of a broader journey. Future plans include exploring more conversational interactions, integrating with booking systems, and extending similar AI powered assistants across other brands as new digital initiatives are introduced.
A radiology scan is typically one element of a patient’s wider health journey. If we can make that part of their journey easier and more predictable, we are doing what they hope and expect of us."
Radi is a small but significant expression of that philosophy. It helps people navigate their healthcare journey with clarity, confidence, and a little more ease.
Fusion5 brought the expertise to guide us through things we would never have known to consider, from how to design and train the agent to the instructions it needed to operate successfully. It has been an enjoyable and valuable collaboration.”
Jesse Thorpe | Cloud Solutions Engineer, RHCNZ Medical Imaging Group
Tim Way | Content Editor
Tim spends time with tech leaders and customers to understand how transformation really plays out. He turns real-world examples into clear, practical content focused on what changed, what worked, and what others can learn.
Thinking about improving patient experience with an AI assistant?
For organisations that manage large volumes of customer enquiries, AI assistants built with platforms like Microsoft Copilot Studio can provide a faster and more consistent way to access information. By surfacing trusted content through a conversational interface, organisations can help people quickly find answers to common questions, reduce avoidable contact centre demand, and create a more supportive digital experience across websites and mobile channels.
At Fusion5, we help organisations design, build and deploy AI assistants using Microsoft Copilot Studio and the Power Platform. From defining safe boundaries for AI interactions through to structuring knowledge sources and continuously improving responses with data insights, we help organisations introduce AI in a practical, secure and human-centred way.
Q&A
What is Microsoft Copilot Studio and how is it used to build AI assistants?
How can AI assistants improve patient experience?
AI assistants help people quickly access practical information without needing to search through multiple pages or contact a support team. By answering common questions about services, locations, processes or preparation requirements, AI assistants can reduce friction, improve accessibility of information and support customers at the moment they need help.
What types of questions can AI assistants safely answer?
Most organisations begin by using AI assistants to handle non-specialist enquiries such as appointment preparation, service availability, booking guidance, contact details or location information. By restricting the assistant to approved content sources and clearly defining boundaries, organisations ensure the AI provides helpful information while avoiding areas that require specialist advice.
How do organisations ensure AI assistants provide trustworthy information?
Trustworthy AI assistants are built on curated knowledge sources such as website content, internal documents and approved FAQs. Governance controls, testing processes and clear escalation paths ensure the assistant provides accurate responses and directs users to human support when needed.
Why is continuous improvement important for AI assistants?
Once deployed, AI assistants generate valuable data about the questions people ask and the information they struggle to find. Analysing conversation patterns helps organisations refine content, improve responses and expand capabilities over time. This continuous improvement cycle ensures the assistant becomes more helpful and effective as usage grows.
