By: Saaiha Shakaib, Saneh Dhingana, Erum Rizvi
Introduction & The Problem
The phone rings. It’s 2:37 AM.
A frantic voice on the other end struggles to get the words out — “My father… he’s not breathing… please, send someone.”
But the call is placed on hold. The precious seconds stretch into minutes. By the time help arrives, it’s too late.
It’s a scene that plays out far too often in healthcare and emergency call centers worldwide. Overwhelmed operators, outdated systems, and endless queues mean critical calls fall through the cracks when every second matters. And behind every dropped call is a story — a life altered, a family shattered, a trust broken.
This isn’t a hypothetical. It’s a reality backed by staggering numbers: 24% of hospital calls go unanswered, 7% of callers hang up before being heard, and in times of disaster, up to 50% of emergency calls never get a response. First Call Resolution rates hover around 71%, and each missed call can cost providers up to $486 in lost revenue. *
In a world where seconds can save lives, missed calls are not an option.
In the United States, the crisis is even more acute. A Pew Research survey revealed that thousands of 911 calls go unanswered every day, with 10% of all callers at risk of disconnection after minutes of waiting (CNN). National data shows 82% of U.S. emergency call centers are understaffed, battling burnout, low wages, and recruitment challenges (Axios). These delays aren’t just inconvenient – they’re deadly. The tragic case of Denise Amber Lee, abducted and murdered despite multiple 911 calls, is a heartbreaking example of what happens when help doesn’t come in time (Wikipedia).
Meanwhile, U.S. healthcare call centers are overwhelmed by high volumes and staffing shortages, pushing average hold times to 4.4 minutes – far above the 50-second target. As a result, missed appointments and delayed care are common. This directly impacts patient experience, and it hits providers where it hurts most: revenue. According to T2 Group, missed calls can cost healthcare providers thousands of dollars in lost revenue every week (T2 Group).
The result? Dropped calls. Delayed help. Lives at risk. There is also a growing mistrust of a system that’s supposed to protect us at our most vulnerable.
It’s clear the traditional model – manual, overloaded, and human-only – is no longer sustainable. The path forward lies in augmenting human agents with intelligent, AI-driven support that can triage, route, and escalate critical cases instantly and at scale.
The Solution: Intelligent, Scalable, and Quick Response with Salesforce’s Agentforce
Salesforce’s Agentforce delivers the intelligent, scalable, and quick response that today’s emergency and healthcare systems urgently need. In a world where every second counts, Agentforce reimagines call handling through structured automation and smart decision-making. By streamlining critical steps, like capturing patient context, identifying urgency, and prioritizing next actions, it reduces delays, eliminates decision fatigue, and ensures every call is handled with speed, accuracy, and consistency. With Salesforce at its core, no urgent call slips through the cracks.
At the heart of this approach is data enrichment. Every patient call is captured and transformed into a structured summary using Agentforce’s robust case management and automation capabilities. This summary distills essential information from the conversation – symptoms, tone, urgency cues, and contextual details – into a clear and concise case record within Salesforce.
From there, Agentforce agents extract key data points and apply contextual analysis to determine the urgency of each case. Using built-in triage logic and configurable rules, they distinguish between critical symptoms like chest pain, issues like missed prescriptions, or routine check-ups, ensuring each case is prioritized accurately and routed to the appropriate next step.
Based on the assessed urgency, Agentforce can trigger automated workflows that:
- Alert triage teams or dispatch emergency services
- Connect the patient to an available physician for immediate guidance
- Book a future appointment depending on the patient’s preference
With Agentforce, what was once a reactive, manual process becomes a proactive, intelligent flow, reducing missed calls, accelerating response times, and ensuring that patients get the help they need, when they need it.
Design & Architecture
The Power of Modular Design in Agentforce
To address the growing demands of scalability, maintainability, and reusability, this solution is built around a modular architecture at its foundation. At the heart of this design are Agentforce agents – each implemented as an independent, self-contained module tailored to a specific domain, capability, or function within the broader application landscape.
These modular agents are not only autonomous in operation but also engineered to communicate seamlessly through well-defined interfaces. This decoupled interaction model enables flexible orchestration and facilitates integration with external systems such as large language models (LLMs), process engines, and orchestration layers. As a result, the system can evolve and scale without tightly coupling its components, preserving agility even as complexity grows.
This architectural approach constructs a dynamic, extensible ecosystem where intelligent agents – handling everything from customer support and real-time decision-making to content generation, knowledge retrieval, and workflow automation – can work in parallel or in coordination, as needed. The outcome is a resilient and future-ready platform that adapts effortlessly to changing business requirements and emerging technologies.
Impact and Conclusion
In moments of crisis, what matters most isn’t just technology – it’s trust. It’s knowing that when you or someone you love reaches out for help, there’s a system that listens, responds, and acts without hesitation. Every missed call is a chance lost to save a life, offer comfort, or provide hope.
With solutions leveraging Agentforce and other LLMs, healthcare and emergency services have seen response times improve by up to 40% and missed call rates drop by as much as 60% in pilot programs worldwide. It’s not just about better metrics – it’s about better outcomes. About transforming silent, unanswered moments into life-saving actions.
Because in healthcare and emergency response, it’s never just a call – it’s someone’s world on the other end of the line. And that deserves nothing less than our fastest, smartest, and most human response. That’s the future we’re building. And it starts now.
*(Sources: T2 Group, Dialog Health, Digital Minds BPO, Domestic Preparedness).