Elaborate vs Switchboard, MD (2026)
Both sort what reaches a clinician, from different directions. Elaborate sends patients protocol based result summaries when results are released to them directly under the 21st Century Cures Act. It tags and summarizes inbound patient messages by clinical urgency and checks medication requests against protocol. Elaborate describes its protocol engine as deterministic and not built on large language models. Switchboard, MD classifies everything a practice receives, from faxes and voicemails to portal messages and web forms, and routes it into work queues. Referrals are extracted into the patient record, benefits are checked, and voice and text agents book the patient. Its founding message triage model was published in NEJM AI in 2025. Choose Elaborate for result summaries at release and protocol based refills; choose Switchboard, MD to route faxes, calls and messages into queues and turn referrals into scheduled visits.
- Patients should get a plain summary when results are released to them directly.
- Refill requests should be checked against protocol with chart context alongside.
- You run Epic or athenahealth and want named health systems using it in production.
- Faxes, voicemails and portal messages should be sorted into work queues by type.
- Referrals should become scheduled appointments with benefits checked.
- You want on premises deployment as an option.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Elaborate and Switchboard, MD are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | Elaborate | Switchboard, MD |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Clinical Inbox & Messaging AI | Healthcare Administrative Automation |
| Founded | 2021 | 2022 |
| Headquarters | New York, New York | Atlanta, Georgia, United States |
| Website | elaborate.com | switchboardmd.com |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Each vendor in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph opens the AI Health Index profile of the vendor: what the product is, who buys it and what it does.
Elaborate sells inbox infrastructure to health systems and physician groups, built around what patients receive when results are released to them directly under the 21st Century Cures Act. It was founded in 2021 in New York by Nicole Bocskocsky, previously at Oscar and Parsley Health, and raised a $10 million seed round in January 2023 led by Tusk Venture Partners.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Physician-built AI that classifies, prioritizes and routes everything a practice receives from patients and referrers, and now leads with turning referrals into scheduled care.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Questions buyers ask
How do Elaborate and Switchboard, MD work with the EHR?
The home page links Elaborate's Epic Showroom listing and its athenahealth Marketplace listing.
Switchboard, MD joined athenahealth's Partner Community as a Solution Partner in July 2026, with its solution listed in the athenahealth Marketplace; that integration classifies inbound referrals, creates or updates the patient record, and writes confirmed appointments back into athenahealth. The founding model ran inside Emory's record system messaging pools. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 30, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Which settings and specialties do Elaborate and Switchboard, MD cover?
In Elaborate's case, the product is scoped to ambulatory care, with protocols said to span 'more than 30 ambulatory specialties'; the specialties are not listed.
For Switchboard, MD, coverage spans specialty practices (the site's current focus), an academic health system, a critical access hospital and an ophthalmology group, across portal messages, calls, voicemail, fax, text, email, web forms and chat, in the United States. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 30, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
What evidence is published for Elaborate and Switchboard, MD?
With Elaborate, the August 2024 Austin Regional Clinic release, quoting ARC's chief medical officer, reports a 19 percent decrease in patient medical advice requests within weeks of onboarding, an 89 percent no-edit rate on messages, 'up to 36% less time in the inbasket', and 97 percent of patients saying the note helped them understand their results.
In Switchboard, MD's case, the company says the studied model was an early version of its product. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 30, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How much do Elaborate and Switchboard, MD leave to the clinician?
For Elaborate, the technology page's 'No black boxes and no hallucinations', by contrast, is backed by a described mechanism (deterministic protocols a clinician can test and trace).
With Switchboard, MD, the company's own published study reports 97.8 percent classification accuracy, so some messages, urgent ones included, are misclassified. The models are also described as 'continuous learning based on outcomes', so their behavior changes as teams work. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 30, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the Clinical Inbox & Messaging AI page.
Both records were reviewed on this site in September 2026. Neither publishes a price. Neither states a regulatory position. Elaborate's summaries reach patients at release, before a clinician sees them. Clinicians still review every result. Switchboard, MD's model decides which patient messages go to non clinical queues, so a clinician may never read them. Switchboard, MD promises urgent needs are surfaced "every time". Its own NEJM AI study reports 97.8 percent classification accuracy on 500 held back messages, so some are misclassified. Elaborate says its refill safety net "helps ensure nothing gets missed" and gives no figure for it. Elaborate's published results, such as 89 percent of summaries needing no edit at Austin Regional Clinic, give no denominators. Elaborate's terms say business associate agreements govern patient data. Switchboard, MD claims HIPAA compliance and states no agreement.
Ask Switchboard, MD how a misclassified urgent message is caught, and ask Elaborate what its safety net has missed.