Chatbots: Your New Healthcare Assistant

Chatbots, or a talking software programs or smart algorithms which dexterously conduct conversation via auditory or textual methods, are becoming popular and widespread.   They have been proving its mettle in many industries such as entertainment, banking and finance, NEWS and media, fashion industry, manufacturing, engineering, etc. A majority of companies have already started adopting chatbots to deal with host of situations and proficiently serve customer needs. While all these industries are seeking advantage of chatbot applications, healthcare industry is lagging nowhere behind and is supposed to experience the biggest paradigm shift. Healthcare providers build highly personalised digital health solutions such as digital health monitoring platforms and precision medicine.

In this blog we are going to talk about some of the applications of chatbot that will aid patients and doctors in saving money and time respectively.

Chatbots fulfilling the need of a secretary/clerk

Nurse/Caregiver’s tasks replaced by chatbots

Chatbots: the new therapist and counselor

Chatbots Fulfilling the Need of a Secretary/Clerk

• Scheduling Appointments

Chatbot’s utilization in healthcare is proved to be a good prospect to begin communication with future possible patients. Just like a secretary, itcan perform the functionalities of an administration department in terms of setting up doctor’s appointments and following up with patients.

Just like customer service where chatbots serve the customers lessening down the agent’s work load, chatbots in healthcare industry can organize schedules for staff and patients lessening the burden of helpdesk employees. So, now people neither do have to wait long via phone call nor they have to go to hospitals or clinics personally to book an appointment with a doctor.

• Billing, Registration and Claiming Process Made Easy.

Not everyone wants to deal with claims, insurance bills, and complicated medical bills. Therefore, chatbots are devised using complex machine learning algorithms to recognize any medical terms and billing codes. These algorithms work on historic claims data to provide the current billing information, to make certain that the medical claims are filed correctly, speed up the payments and reduce errors.

Nurse/Caregiver’s Tasks Replaced by Chatbots 

• Notifications or Medication Reminders

Chatbots has made it easy for the patients to interact and get prescriptions for any general illness they are suffering from. With the help of machine learning and other intelligent tools, chatbots can act as a reminder to the patients when they forget to take their medications and nutrition supplements prescribed by the doctor.They can eve send you reminders pinging about re-prescription, regular check-ups, and other health related stuff.

• Support and Additional Information to Patients

Don’t you think that today’s healthcare facilities are unable to provide 24/7 support to the patients.Also, do you feel nowadays the help desk assistant do justification with the patients in taking care? These human assistants or nurses do need rest and might go through mood swings but chatbots don’t! Chatbots can be utilized to provide endless unbiased support without any break anytime anywhere. These are designed to answer FAQs i.e. Frequently Asked Questions which contains answers to all the generalized questions that a patient might need in absence of a doctor.

Also, they are not meant to offer diagnosis services as of now, but they can act smartly by notifying a nurse or doctor at the time of emergency. Apart from chatbot asking questions to diagnose patient’s health, patients can even seek information regarding general symptoms and diseases from them.

Example of some of the questions can be-

“How long can someone stay infectious after a viral infection?”

“How to find my blood type?”

“Can paracetamol be taken to treat a normal fever?”

Chatbots: The New Therapist and Counsellor      

• Monitoring Symptoms

The virtual talking assistants can ask you about your illness and the state of feeling to provide you with solutions, hence acting as a therapist. They may ask general questions related to body temperature, blood pressure, cough and cold, etc. to make relevant conclusions as per the symptoms. Additionally, they can suggest precautions to be taken and solutions according to your symptoms.

This feature is also helpful for doctors as the chatbots can scan the patient’s information and symptoms prior visiting the doctor. 20%-25% of doctor’s precious time can be saved and utilized in providing attention to those patients who need urgent medical assistance.

Talking Algorithms Bringing Revolution in Healthcare Industry!

These virtual assistant have not been accepted properly by a sector of the society. The reasons being elderly still preferring to avoid utilizing digital technologies, as chatbots are sensible to hacking people don’t feel comfortable placing private information at risk. However, seeing the improved healthcare quality with the help of these chatbots is changing the way organizations are working. Everyone from doctors, patients and people related with healthcare industry are interested in knowing the benefits that chatbots are going to bring in future.

Brainvire is currently developing chatbot that provide FAQs types that involves what to do and what not to do list of questions for those in the need of general medical guidance. We are developing this platform using IBM Watson which is a deep learning AI for businesses. If you want to be a part of this high-tech revolution and get a talking software built for your own business to ease operations and save time, you can reach out to us at info@brainvire.com.