Introduction:
Chatbots are constructing their strong roots in almost every sector.
And healthcare is one of them that is experiencing the essence of chatbots in their care delivery and beyond.
Our thought process on healthcare chatbots.
- It is the future of the healthcare industry.
- It delivers the results in the true sense.
- It makes healthcare solutions more valuable.
- It has the superpower to bring the revolution in healthcare assistance.
- It makes the quality of care experience more delightful.
However, not many healthcare professionals and organizations are familiar with the importance of healthcare chatbots.
So, this blog is a comprehensive guide to understanding healthcare chatbots.
What are healthcare chatbots?
Healthcare chatbots are software that helps healthcare professionals, patients, and other healthcare facilities to connect with each other without any intervention.
It is built with Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Nature Language Processing in order to help both patients and healthcare experts as real-time assistants just like humans.
Healthcare chatbots facilitate care delivery and lower medical and overhead costs in the healthcare ecosystem.
Because of its extensive use cases in every stage of the care solutions, the healthcare industry is now massively embracing this AI-powered tech solution to address time-consuming and costlier barriers.
The booming market of healthcare chatbots speaks everything!
According to Verified Market Research, “Healthcare Chatbots Market size was valued at USD 194.85 Million in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 943.64 Million by 2030”.
The top driving factor of this booming market is the adoption of medical chatbots in virtual care assistance. Virtual care solutions such as telemedicine apps are implementing chatbots in order to assist both patients and their care providers in one go.
In addition to this, the rising adoption of smartphones and mHealth apps has leveled up the use cases of medical chatbots.
As a result, digital healthcare providers are using healthcare chatbots to stay always on top of virtual healthcare solutions.
The importance of chatbots in the healthcare industry
The healthcare industry always strives to implement tach solutions that have the potential to decode the needs of patients and care providers along with lowering the costs.
Healthcare chatbots hold the potential to fulfill those needs in a faster, more efficient, and cost-effective manner.
For instance,
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Real-time interaction:
Patients or healthcare providers can get an immediate response to their needs or queries hassle-free.
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Saves time and costs:
Higher costs and time-consuming workflows have always been a headache for the healthcare industry.
But as per the industry analysts, healthcare conversational chatbots save almost 3 to 4 minutes for simple queries along with nearly 50% to 60% of costs per interaction.
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Ensures operational efficiency:
Healthcare chatbots regulate some of the repetitive tasks which allow medical experts to focus on the other key areas of patient care experience.
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Reduces administrative work:
The administrative staff spends almost 80% time on appointment-related queries which pushes them back to focus on the other key responsibilities.
With chatbots, administrative staff can effortlessly avoid all this mess.
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Speeds up the care approach:
Many medical chatbots ask some important questions to the patient before their appointment which directly helps the care providers to understand the need of the patient with the help of a Patient engagement software.
What are the types of healthcare chatbots?
There are mainly three types of chatbots in healthcare.
Let’s explore each of them in detail.
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Informative chatbots:
This type of healthcare chatbot has a single aim – to educate or deliver information to the user in the form of a notification.
For instance, many healthcare news websites use informative chatbots so when a user is reading an article related to the “Reason Behind Poor Mental Health” the chatbot automatically gives a pop-up notification to the user like “Tips to Improve the Mental Health.”
Here is another example.
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Conversational chatbots:
The conversational chatbots are built as per the user’s intent.
However, the conversation response and time depend on the maturity of the chatbot. This means, there are levels in the conversational chatbots.
For instance,
- Level 1 – for FAQs
- Level 2 – Multi round conversations
- Level 3 – Proactive
- Level 4 – Non-linear conversations
- Level 5 – Chatbot cooperation
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Prescriptive chatbots:
These are the advanced versions as it is not only just for answering the patients’ queries but also deliver reliable therapeutic solutions.
As a result, prescriptive chatbots are massively used in digital mental healthcare or mental health apps to assist patients to analyze and improve their mental conditions.
Explore the use cases of the healthcare chatbots
Here are some of the real-world examples of medical chatbots along with how it helps.
#1. Symptom checking:
It helps the patient to identify the disease by giving some common answers as the chatbot contains massive storage of the medical data.
How does it help?
- Saves time for the patient
- Enables patients to understand their medical condition
- No need to rush directly to the hospital
#2. Appointment booking:
Both patient and administrative staff can avoid the hassle of the appointment booking process as chatbot guides the patient in an appointment booking.
How does it help?
- Saves the operational costs of the healthcare organization
- Reduces the work burden
- Eliminates the need for the phone calls
#3. Schedule appointments:
Just like appointment booking, scheduling is a major headache for healthcare entities.
By integrating the scheduling tool with the chatbot, administrators can automate the scheduling of the patient with the right doctor, at the right time.
How does it help?
- Saves time and costs related to scheduling
- Reduces the unnecessary workflows
#4. Collect patient data:
This is one of the most important use cases of the healthcare chatbot.
It collects real-time and accurate patient health data that can be proven more beneficial in the care approach as well as the clinical research.
#5. Medical assistance:
As we said earlier, chatbot contains a large amount of medical data. As a result, it helps healthcare professionals in clinical assessment.
Apart from medical assistance, healthcare chatbots have proven their worth in the case of improving the mental health of patients without any initial support.
How does it help?
- Enriches care experience
- Boost the care approach
- Reduces the clinical time and costs
Give a digital touch to your healthcare solutions
Healthcare organizations, especially digital healthcare providers are adopting chatbots in their health tech solutions.
For instance, the mHealth app and healthcare software development.
As a result, they are leveraging their care abilities without compromising the overhead and medical costs.
The future is convincing of the chatbots as digital tech is in the driving seat of the healthcare industry!
