How AI-powered Chatbots are Enhancing Patient Experience

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Enhance patient experience through the transformative capabilities of AI-powered chatbots. These innovative tools are revolutionizing healthcare by streamlining appointment scheduling, providing personalized care, assessing symptoms, offering multi-language support, reducing costs, and ensuring accessibility. Discover how AI-powered chatbots are shaping the future of patient care.

“…AI will not replace doctors, but instead will augment them, enabling physicians to practice better medicine with greater accuracy and increased efficiency.”

– Benjamin Bell

AI – Artificial Intelligence has come a long way. There are times when it is used ideally, while there are times when its power is abused and mistreated. However, healthcare is one such sector that can benefit significantly from artificial Intelligence.

However, healthcare is one such sector that can benefit a lot from artificial Intelligence.  AI in healthcare is its use at its best.

COVID taught us how people’s mental health could deteriorate and how therapists could help them online. It also enabled other specialists to reach out to their patients faster and diagnose as well as treat them.

Now, imagine all the remaining barriers will be removed if AI chatbots would come into the picture.

How?

They will be available to talk to people even in the middle of the night. They will have a medical history of the patient well in advance, which will enable them to diagnose quickly. And they will provide the essential treatment up until the doctor arrives to take over.

And here are a few more reasons as to how AI-powered Chatbots are enhancing patient experience:

 

 1.    Scheduling The Appointment

Do you remember those days when people had to sit outside the doctor’s office for hours to meet with him, discuss the symptoms, get checked, receive the medication, and leave? Or go for the test, wait for the results, come again for the check-up, receive the improvised medicines, and then leave?

And if someone had been having fits, or couldn’t sit because of uneasiness or weakness, then it would be hell for the person. Instead, imagine a person receiving the notification that the appointment with the doctor has been scheduled. They could rest, arrive on time, meet with the doctor, and leave.

It is one of the best uses of AI chatbots that they can decide on the appointment schedule without having to disturb doctors or assign a substitute if the particular doctor isn’t available. The treatment will be on time, and it would benefit the hospital’s business as well.

 

2.    Symptoms Assessment

Now imagine not having to go to the doctor at all. You just name the symptoms, and you’ll be handed the prescriptions of medicines in the perfect quantity. In fact, if the technology permits someday, one will be able to download medicines with the help of AI.

In short, with real-time solutions provided by AI chatbots, the assessments of symptoms will be easier. It will not require doing various tests and then figuring out how to remedy the illness; instead, it will immediately manage to find the solution without doing the tests.

 

3.    Personalized Care

If it isn’t mentioned above, let it be noted here that AI helps with the personalized care of the patient. It has the patient’s history with it, so the health care plan is prepared accordingly. It supports with recommendations and alterations in lifestyle.

And not just that, it also helps with diet recommendations, workout schedules, nutritionists, recipes, etc. So, with AI, it is not just about working around illness but health in general. Along with remedying it, it helps maintain it too.

Along with that, AI chatbots are enhanced with NLP – Natural Language Processing. Thus, it helps them understand human language, their emotions, and their intent as well. The chatbots will immediately know if a person is suicidal or harmful to others and help them out better.

 

4.    Improve Health Education

AI chatbots will be available for the medicine students along with the patients. Physical teaching has its limitations, but AI teaching doesn’t. With the help of AI, the students will be able to learn the practical part of medical training. 

Even when the doctors are unavailable, the juniors, interns, and substitutes, with the help of AI chatbots, can assist the patients. Lives are lost because of the unavailability of doctors at times, and AI can help reduce those numbers because it will provide immediate solutions.

 

5.    Accessibility

AI chatbots are accessible from everywhere. And this is how it helps reduce the waiting time. You do not have to Google numbers or search for the best neurologist near me. It will help solve minor issues by itself and will schedule an immediate appointment with the specialist, no matter where you are.

Even if you are in a foreign country, you’ll be able to get the required treatment on time. Also, one wouldn’t need to wait for the medical history to be sent from the family doctor. It will be readily available with AI to study and get to work on the treatment.

 

6.    Multi-Language Support

The support of AI chatbots is not limited to the English language. It is available in multiple languages so that the patient can ask about their doubts about AI in their known language. It leverages language recognition and translation into different lingos and understands the local jargon as well.

Thus, it enhances the patient experience in a more authentic sense.

 

7.    Cost Reduction

AI-enhanced chatbots help reduce the cost for the patient by nullifying the need to go to the doctors every time. Healthcare chatbots help patients avoid unnecessary lab tests and visits. If the illness can be solved at home with medicines available in the nearby chemist shop, then why visit a doctor?

They also provide knowledge about diseases like cancer, diabetes, AIDS, etc., and how to keep them in check. The notifications sent by the chatbots help patients manage their eating, medicine, sleep, and rest schedules. Thus, it helps with the cost reduction of visiting the specialist.

Although there are some cases where a person must meet a specialist, but the ones where the visit is not needed, AI chatbots come to the rescue.

 

8.    Anonymity

Some patients do not want their identity to be revealed because of the nature of the illness. AI chatbots help with that as they are seen as non-human and non-judgmental, allowing patients to feel more comfortable sharing certain medical information, such as checking for STDs, mental health, sexual abuse, and more.

 

Conclusion:

Artificial Intelligence exists to solve the problems of people. It exists to save life and enhance medicine to the point that no people will die of an illness that cannot be cured. Even the best healthcare AI companies believe so.

Thus, if you belong to the healthcare industry, think about incorporating AI chatbots into your business and being available to your patients everywhere at any given time. After all, the best use of AI could be and should be done by the healthcare industry.  

 

Illustration: Free Health App 3D Illustration on IconScout

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