A chatbot designed to handle follow-up medical care can help hospital deliver better care

Shekhar Mhaskar,VP, Isobar India, in an interaction with Mansha Gagneja, reveals more about the applications of a chatbot in a healthcare set up

Give us a brief about a Chatbot.

Chatbots are simple to complex artificial intelligence (AI) systems that one interacts via text. Those interactions can be either straightforward, like asking a bot to provide weather report, or complex like asking to troubleshoot a problem with Internet services. Even one can seek preliminary to advanced healthcare advice. It ranges right from being functional at one end of the spectrum to fun and entertaining at the other end.

Being in the era of messaging, marketing and interfacing, consumers have realised its importance and have slowly shifted to this platform in the form of Chatbots. Even buyer behaviour has witnessed a shift from social networks and apps, to messaging platforms such as SMS, FB Messenger, Apple iMessage, Slack, etc. Hence, technology companies are now building Chatbots on these platforms to offer AI-driven intelligent and more engaging channels to brands for delivering efficient customer service.

How does  a Chatbot work?

A Chatbot is a service, powered by a combination of rules and AI. The functions based on rules are limited in their offerings as it can only respond to specific commands. If you say the wrong thing, it doesn’t know what you mean. This bot is only as smart as it is programmed to be.

Chatbot that functions using machine learning has an artificial brain a.k.a AI. The chatbot gradually understands the language and one has to be very specific when commanding it. The bot continuously gets smarter as it learns from interactions.

Building chatbots is not a complicated task given a plethora of readymade services like Octane AI, wit.ai, api.ai, textit.in, Motion.ai, Chatfuel, IBM’s Watson, Gupshup and many more. Here are a few simple steps to follow:- Figure out what problem needs to be solved; choose the platform for the bot; set up a server to run bot from and finally choose which service to use to build the bot.

What are the implications of a chatbot at workplace? How does it redefine wellness  at work? How do chatbots redefine employee engagement programme?

When it comes to an enterprise environment, there are various disciplines which can take advantage of chatbots to increase business efficiency by deploying them across functions like sales, expense management, automated recruitment, intelligent Q&A, and many other applications.

Chatbots at work also help ease the stress of never-ending rigours that come with daily management activities that would otherwise take up a lot of human effort. It could simply be managing to-do lists, to managing the sales team, to even conduct induction sessions for new employees. These AI platforms can also deliver data-driven results in places like call centres, assisting customer service representatives as they solve problems for frustrated customers. Chatbots could even replace human assistants in some situations — instead of asking the front desk to book flights or appointments.

Employee fatigue can be brought down to a large extent when machines take over the more menial jobs, thus leading to their improved overall well being. They are able to concentrate on tasks that are more result oriented. Chat platforms like Slack have revolutionised workplace communications and have nearly replaced traditional tools like e-mails, while creating convenience and saving time for its users.

How do chatbots improve healthcare service?

There’s nothing better than receiving personalised healthcare and personal attention. Undoubtedly, health assistant bots, if I may call them, are a perfect way to deliver personalised healthcare to any patient. Health support can range from general medical advice, prescription refills, test results, appointment scheduling, to preliminary diagnosis, ongoing follow up, and so on and so forth. All of this is accessible round-the-clock without having to wait in line.

Many industry experts have said that diseases can be predicted by machines more accurately than doctors by analysing data. Chatbots, created by integrating AI and machine learning capabilities, can perform image recognition and sentiment analysis to offer caregivers and patients instant, as well as personalised, responses to critical health-related queries.

These bots are not only helpful for patients, but are immensely beneficial for hospitals, doctors, and other medical staff. Hospitals can achieve improved results if the doctors and nurses keep in touch with the patient once they leave the facility. A chatbot designed to handle follow-up medical care can help the hospital deliver better care and even decrease the hospital’s re-admission rate. Doctors could interact with the bot to get the latest information about the patient’s diagnosis results, medication, and recent treatments before the appointment. It ultimately aids the doctor in enhancing productivity and enables them to respond to patients quickly, while helping the hospital to retain patients.

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