Global outbreak of COVID-19 has compelled all industrial sectors to rethink their ways of customer engagement when physical engagement is off the mark. As a major chunk of employees work from home, it leaves them with little time to answer the huge rush of common queries from customers. Intelligent chatbots have been in the market since long to enable organisations to devote time to more important tasks while chatbots take care of responding to common queries.

As per Market Research, the global healthcare chatbots market is expected to reach USD 316.85 million by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 21.10 percent over the forecast period (2018-2023). The interest in chatbot improvement has immensely increased across healthcare enterprises and associations after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Artificial Intelligence powered chatbots have revolutionised the Medical Industry. It has upgraded the patient experience and helped in reducing medical staff intervention. This technology will generously provide monetary benefits and faster resolution to patient’s problems.

Chatbots can help medical teams by reducing their daily workloads. Chatbots can recommend an online conversation with a physician before visiting their place. As we all know the spread of COVID-19 has put a lot of burden on the healthcare workers. With the help of chatbots, medical centers can easily handle the inflow of patients and reduce the pressure from the system.

Benefits of using chatbots are

• Better organization of patient appointments
• Immediate assistance in emergency situations
• Drug Management
• Quick solution for small medical problems

Top 5 Advantages of using Chatbots in Medical Industry

1. Patient’s Query Resolution

The main aspect of Chatbot development is to address the question asked by the patients regarding premedical treatment. So, to answer these questions chatbots can help medical care providers by attending these common questions 24×7. They reduce the burden from the healthcare workers and  provide possible information on the symptoms, the possible diagnosis, and give opportunity to schedule an appointment directly with the doctor.

2. Scheduling Appointments

By using these chatbots, patients can easily select their doctor, choose a convenient time, and feed their information prior to visiting the doctor. This helps the doctor to be aware of the patient’s history and purpose of the visit. It also helps setting follow-up reminders.

Chatbots are used by patients to book their appointment with doctors and if in case it needs to be canceled by the patient, that can also be done using this. This will minimize the tasks of the Front Desk executives of healthcare providers by digitising the process of collecting patient’s data, inquiries, common queries, etc. so that they can provide better user experience to their patients.

3. Remote Patient Health Monitoring

Some patients need to be constantly monitored post treatment. Doctors can efficiently do this with the help of intelligent chatbots. Patients or their care takers can feed their daily activities and health conditions in the database through chatbots which can be viewed by the respective doctors to examine the condition and take necessary steps. This helps the doctor to monitor the patient remotely.

New trends show the increase in awareness among people regarding the usefullness of smart wearables. These devices, often powered by Artificial Intelligence, record important biological information such as temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, calorie count,  etc. Activity monitor, fitness tracker, smart eyewear, smartwatch, and smart clothing are some of the examples of modern day health facilitators which is extensively used in healthcare industry to remotely monitor patients.

4. Self-Analysis of Symptoms

Healthcare providers are developing chatbots that helps users to do self analysis from the comfort of their homes. COVID-19 has seen the rise of mobile applications which come with chatbots that ask you relevant questions to be answered for self health analysis and gives you a report of your health status. These applications are easy to download and used on any mobile device.  We shall witness a surge in the chatbot market providing you different health analysis solutions in the post-COVID world.

5. Handling Billing & Registration

Registration and billing are some of the tasks that can be fully automated to reduce the dependency on humans. Patients can simply reserve an appointment by checking the schedule of his physician that the chatbots provide. This would require no receptionist to check with the physician and in turn avoid human errors in scheduling appointments. Similarly, when well-known billing solutions are integrated into the system, patient billing can be simplified. Patient must feed his/her patient ID when the chatbot prompts. The chatbot will then seek the database for all the details and provide the billing information to the patient.

Conclusion

The current pandemic has changed the world in a way that everyone must think of alternative ways to overcome the limitations posed by it. The fear of medical patients visiting health units is increasing day by day. To reduce this fear and streamline the operations, one can leverage this kind of Artificial Intelligence powered Chatbots. They help medical patients to communicate easily with their respective doctors without any hesitation while being able to access it 24×7.

eInfochips is a product engineering company having more than 25 years of  experience in Device Engineering, Digital Engineering and Quality Engineering. It helps organizations in developing highly tailored solutions on artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language procecessing , and digital technologies. It has been an innovation partner for many medical device companies. It also has an expertise in FDA class 2 and class 3 non-invasive medical device development. Get in touch with our experts to know more.