Technology is restructuring the healthcare industry. Constantly evolving technology is completely changing the communication methods and patterns between patients and doctors. Moreover, technology is also reforming the way of administering care to patients. Artificial intelligence and chatbots are one of the most potent vehicles for transforming the healthcare industry.
Is it true that chatbots are being used widely by healthcare professionals?
Chatbots can easily maintain conversation with patients and can find solutions. Technologies to facilitate smooth communication between support team and patients were already there but the industry strongly felt that automation was needed to take it to the next level. Chatbots helped in the scalability of the much-needed support systems and patient engagement.
As per research by Gartner, by 2020, approximately 50% of medium and large businesses will use Chatbots to smoothen and optimize their operations.
Healthcare Industry is widely using Chatbots
Diagnosis is an impressive feature of Chatbots. Symptom-based diagnosis of many Chatbots helps the patients by enabling them to receive instant answers for their queries regarding general health and ailments. Some other remarkable features work as digital therapists by asking leading questions from patients. The patients open up to these digital therapists as these are programmed to mimic human conversation.
Chatbots are meticulously designed to imbibe and internalize from thousands of interactions in order to improve the accuracy of their disease recognition. The prime objective is to be able to help people in lesser time and for lesser money as compared to a healthcare professional.
Chatbots are helping practitioners in providing persistent support to their patients between two sessions. It is now much beyond just responding with the automated text. Technologies like Chatbots, telehealth, IoT, and others along with smartphone usage are making a significant contribution towards market growth in the healthcare industry. Patients are now being attended initially by Chatbots; after this initial step, the Chatbots will determine the right healthcare professional and refer these patients to them.
We need to agree and accept that Chatbots are yet to operate at a true human level. All the current systems are still learning and hence errors cannot be denied. Most of the modern Chatbots are just text-based and are unable to recognize voices or pictures yet. With advancement in technology, the recommendations become specialized and more accurate; Chatbots could save millions of dollars on visits and associated costs in future.
According to a prediction from Grand View Research, the global Chatbot market will reach 1.25 billion dollars by 2025, with a CAGR of 24.3 percent.
Let us understand the usage of Chatbots in detail:
The main purpose of Chatbots is to provide seamless platform to facilitate conversation between healthcare professionals and patients.
- Customer ServiceIf you are on any website or application to find out guidance on basic health issues, chatbots are available to help you navigate through various screens to find your solution. You may soon experience that chatbots are scheduling appointments, providing reminders, providing online prescriptions and changing the same as per the diagnosis. There are various privacy policies and guidelines like HIPAA to be followed as well.
- Patient EngagementPatient Engagement is very important and these days automated technology is being used to retain communication between patients and healthcare providers. Chatbots are used not only for capturing data but also for addressing the patients’ concern for their healthcare management. Moreover, these Chatbots are limiting the calls by solving maximum queries through chats. One of the challenges was to be available and accessible for the patients round the clock but with the help of Chatbots, it has become manageable for healthcare professionals.Healthcare professionals believe that a properly calculated effort towards using the technology at the fullest can help in improving the engagement.
- Order of TreatmentChatbots cannot help in providing treatment as yet but these are very important to manage the order of treatment. You can also expect these to turn out to be routine steps for the patients in the healthcare industry. AI-based Chatbots can help healthcare professionals to understand the health issue of the patient and then plan proper personalized care. Professionals can easily set the priority patient wise and as per their respective illnesses. Integration of Chatbots with the EMR data can help in creating real-time information about the health of the patients. Apart from just using the Chatbots for communication, the platform can also provide other services like lifestyle management, pre and post-discharge management, pre and post-surgery management, educating the patient, etc.
- Managing EmergenciesEmergencies are absolutely normal for healthcare and in such situations, correct and prompt diagnosis is crucial. During such situations, the healthcare professionals and specialists will be able to provide immediate help and take well-informed decision if they can easily access the required patient information. Chatbots are used for internal record keeping in the healthcare industry. These Chatbots are able to immediately furnish crucial patient information such as prescribed and administered medication, check-up reports, allergies etc.Chatbots drastically reduce the time healthcare professionals would spend while searching in a patient record system. Chatbots can finish these tasks in much lesser time as compared to human employees and the best part is that there is no scope for human errors in case of emergencies.
- Research and DataResearch is important, so is the historical and patient data. In order to harness the data power, machine learning is used in various parts of the world. It helps in analyzing the information and transmitting the same to improve the care. Healthcare professionals can make use of the relevant research papers and its output for any particular ailment. Chatbots also help in interpreting and understanding these data faster to present it to the professionals. The automated system can easily provide accurate recommendations for the professionals for their patients. Automation and categorizing information to deliver relevant data can help in providing personalized treatment to the patient.
CONCLUSION
Presence of Chatbots in the healthcare industry is realty and the trend is growing fast. These Chatbots will be solving common issues and help people receive the required support and communication. Moreover, they will also be logging and accessing all data, maintain good health management and will be taking well-informed decisions. Presently, we can see that the chat system framework is quite strong and the trend is not going to fade. It’s all about technology implementation.
With improvement in artificial intelligence and social connectivity, Chatbots will be transformed into the most preferred device to solve people needs.