What does a well-scoped first pilot look like for a healthcare administration team?

An evaluation lead at a company building agents for healthcare administration wants to test referral intake. Referrals arrive by fax-to-text, secure message and a GP portal, and the clinic's records team must capture them, check completeness and route them to a specialty queue.

The first scoping request lists eleven referral types, four channels and a full set of clinic policies. After discussion, the lead narrows it to two referral types, say orthopaedic and cardiology, and three channels. The pilot has to answer two questions: can the agent detect a missing clinical item, and does it route correctly when urgency is stated in free text?

The agreed sample request includes:

- a small set of cases such as REF-0931, with documents and linked prior referrals - the completeness policy and routing table in readable form - answer keys with rule identifiers and required checks - a schema file and a reset procedure

**State change.** Once the sample arrives, the lead solves a subset by hand and finds two keys that disagree with the policy wording. The provider corrects them and notes the change.

**Consequence.** The lead now trusts the keys enough to run two agents against the sample, and decides whether to widen to more referral types on the basis of what the run shows.

**What it teaches**

- Start with two or three questions, not a full process map. - Hand-solving a subset is the fastest quality check. - Corrections are expected and should be recorded.