Rapid modernization in healthcare is almost unparalleled: driven by the needs of the aging population and growing numbers of patients, this sphere is witnessing drastic transformations. It’s natural, then, that chatbots in the healthcare industry have grown so common. The global market size for healthcare chatbots is expected to hit $944.65 million by 2032. Effective, fast, and constantly improving, they have become an impressive tool to enhance efficiency, manage workloads, and increase patient satisfaction and team loyalty.
As the market for healthcare chatbots grows and technologies allow for innovation and experimentation, now is the perfect time for healthcare providers and companies to consider building a chatbot. It’ll enable a healthcare organization to remain competitive and anticipate patients’ needs. The innovative nature of this technology also means a lower entry point and more opportunities for reaching target audiences.
Stay on board with us and learn what makes a healthcare chatbot great and how to make this software long-lasting.
What Is a Healthcare Chatbot
What is a chatbot in healthcare? A healthcare chatbot is a program or application that uses AI and natural language processing (NLP) to communicate and assist patients with multiple inquiries. This program works by simulating a conversation with a person either via text or voice channels.
Although chatbot technology in healthcare is yet relatively new, it’s already evident that this technology can be useful for different purposes, including answering common healthcare questions, offering personalized care, and setting appointments with doctors. The dominating market for chatbots in healthcare is North America (60%), with Asia Pacific (21%) and Europe (14.5%) following suit.
As the chatbot solution for the healthcare industry is gaining momentum, providers can give immediate, around-the-clock assistance to patients and help their employees work better and faster.
Key Benefits of Chatbots in Healthcare
A healthcare AI chatbot has many uses that target the specific areas of an organization that need it the most. Here’s how adopting this program into your company can benefit you:
24/7 availability
It’s neither feasible nor useful to make healthcare employees remain on duty around the clock. However, here’s when the use of chatbots in healthcare comes into the picture. This software operates constantly with no delays or stops.
This feature is especially vital in the medical field where emergencies and health concerns can happen at any time. A person might have a symptom that they need more information on or may want to ask about the opening hours or a doctor’s availability — instead of calling at night or waiting for call center specialists to get on the line, they can simply chat with a bot.
Even though the chatbot might not have complete information, such basics as schedule or answering specific patient-related questions with the right data is easy and safe.
Enhanced patient engagement
Patients don’t always ask questions from their physicians or even have time to do so: in many settings, time is a limited resource. This can make a patient less informed about their condition and make them unaware of their health status. Fortunately, chatbot solutions for healthcare close this gap between need and opportunity by providing personalized communication. Chatbots can remind patients about their appointments or offer short follow-up information if necessary.
Quicker query resolution
Customers (including those in the medical industry) expect fast resolution of their requests. When it comes to interacting with human specialists, the process can get long. Using chatbots for healthcare solves this issue immediately: these apps provide instant responses. By resolving queries quickly, chatbots positively contribute to the patient experience.
Cost reduction
Since cutting or at least managing costs is a regular concern for healthcare organizations, AI chatbots in healthcare can be a perfect answer to this. Automating routine tasks will no longer require human labor. Even more so, chatbots decrease expenditures associated with the loss of clients or inefficiency. The quicker pace of serving patients also affects the income by processing more operations at once.
Accessibility and convenience
Digitalization has brought a greater demand for faster and more convenient services: automation and chatbots are available in other industries, and healthcare is no exception. Many examples of chatbots in healthcare emphasize the ability to access them from any location and different devices. This can benefit patients in remote areas, where access to high-quality care is limited.
Data collection and analysis
When it comes to “What are chatbots in healthcare for,” a lot of companies and organizations highlight the value of data they can bring in. Due to interactions with patients, chatbots can collect information about symptoms, most common inquiries, potential areas for growth, and other preferences. This data can be analyzed to identify trends and predict potential health issues, which will eventually allow companies to tailor healthcare solutions to the changing customer demands.
Anonymity
Despite often being overlooked, anonymity is one of the critical factors that make uses of chatbots in healthcare so important. Health is a sensitive topic, and discussing it with other people can be problematic, which may even lead to the refusal of treatment altogether.
A recent study emphasized that despite the worries concerning chatbots as a new technology, many patients preferred them to human interactions because they enabled them to discuss crucial health-related concerns, such as sexual health, anonymously. Chatbots provide a level of anonymity that can encourage patients to be more open and honest about their symptoms and concerns.
Practical Applications of Chatbots in Healthcare
It might get difficult to figure out how you can apply a chatbot in your organization, so the healthcare chatbot use cases below can serve as inspirations or ideas to implement in your own AI healthcare chatbot. One of these types of chatbots in healthcare can be your next solution for your clients.
Appointment scheduling
Appointment scheduling is among the most evident and beneficial chatbot use cases in healthcare. There’s no longer a need for a consultant to spend time organizing an appointment for your patients — chatbots can easily do it for you. A patient can specify the desired time for the appointment, which can sometimes be a prolonged process during the call or near the registry. By automating this task, healthcare providers can reduce the administrative burden on staff.
Symptom assessment
Among many applications of chatbots in healthcare, assessing patients’ symptoms and choosing the necessary level of professional care is on the rise. WHO’s chatbots that the organization implemented during the coronavirus pandemic reached more than 12 million people, and the numbers globally are much larger.
Patients can give their basic information to help the bot understand how their age, gender, and other factors affect their health issues. Then, they list the words associated with their symptoms, such as “stomach” and the software proposes the potential keywords that it later enters into its database and suggests as possible symptoms.
After the user chooses the option that suits them the best, a chatbot can inquire about the intensity of the condition and whether it gets better. After the evaluation, patients can receive suggestions on their next steps and what doctor they should visit.
Medication management
A lot of people opt for AI chatbot in healthcare because it allows them to manage their medications and be mindful of how they take them. This one’s an entirely separate section for companies who want to develop a chatbot: this function accounts for providing timely reminders and tracking the dosage.
This market is an excellent option for new businesses to explore, with user penetration reaching 4.75% by 2029. This data indicates that your healthcare organization can connect with more patients in a relatively open market. Patients can interact with the chatbot to confirm that they took the right amount of medication and to keep track of their prescriptions.
Patient data collection
Collecting, storing, and processing relevant patient data can significantly improve the performance of the medical institution. The Healthcare chatbots market is hungry for patient information because it helps develop better solutions and advertise the desired categories of users based on their input. Chatbots can get demographic and symptom information to adjust their future services.
Another option is for this data to be added to patients’ electronic health record (EHR), providing healthcare providers with new insights.
Mental health support
Due to anonymity as one of the benefits of healthcare chatbots, numerous patients are getting more interested in sharing their struggles with a smart non-human dialogue partner. Although a chatbot cannot replace a real therapist, it offers an immediate response and provides empathetic interactions with a patient, which can sometimes be extremely important for better outcomes.
Typically featuring mood trackers and journaling, such chatbots also give mental health tips and encourage healthy coping strategies.
Chronic disease management
Many patients after their discharge from a hospital, especially after operations or difficult treatment processes, find adapting to the external environment difficult. A great chatbot solution for healthcare taps into this need and assists patients in gaining their footing. By giving a sense of confidence and responding to immediate inquiries, chatbots can help improve long-term health outcomes and reduce the risk of complications.
Challenges to Consider When Creating a Healthcare Chatbot
Despite the advantages of creating a chatbot, businesses should be informed about the most common challenges of making one. Knowing them allows you to anticipate and address them before any problems arise.
Limited query understanding
Since healthcare chatbot development is in its relatively early stages, such software struggles with natural language processing (NLP). Bots can misunderstand user requests or questions, leading to incorrect or irrelevant responses. As a result, the entire purpose of such a chatbot can be diminished. So, how to develop a chatbot that actually works? Invest in advanced NLP models and continuously train the chatbot with diverse datasets.
Incorrect or biased information
When a business owner decides to create a chatbot for healthcare, they should keep in mind that the value of their bot is as good as the data it is trained on. Poor training and lack of reliable data can make the chatbot provide inaccurate or even unethical information. It’s crucial to invest in robust NLP models and continuously train the chatbot using diverse datasets.
Data privacy and security
An AI chatbot for healthcare often handles sensitive user data, including symptoms, family situations, or any other sources of information others do not have access to. In 2023, the medical field witnessed disturbing numbers for chatbots and healthcare: there were 742 data breaches that included 500 or more records. When developing a chatbot, business owners should be ready to employ strong encryption and anonymize patient data.
Regulatory compliance
Chatbots used in healthcare remain a difficult topic because they require adherence to specific legal standards and regulations in the area of operation. Non-compliance can lead to legal penalties and damage to the organization’s reputation. That’s why a business owner should build a chatbot with the knowledge of the relevant regulations.
Additionally, a chatbot should include necessary compliance features, such as data encryption and user consent mechanisms, in its design.
The Bottom Line
Healthcare organizations that develop chatbots for healthcare today are championing business growth and progress, catering their services to patient expectations. This innovation can enhance your institution’s performance, deliver high-quality results, and cut costs. If you remain aware of the hidden obstacles while moving forward, you can reap the benefits of chatbots in healthcare and make it right for your patients.
Understanding how to create a chatbot requires technical knowledge that is difficult to obtain on the spot. Having trouble knowing where to start? Our experienced team of specialists can create a chatbot for your unique needs and make sure you’ll love it. Contact us to get a free consultation and start revolutionizing the market today.
Chatbots are used to schedule appointments, evaluate symptoms, manage medications, provide mental health support, and handle chronic diseases. Healthcare organizations implement them to streamline many customer service operations and provide immediate response for patients when they need it. Advantages of chatbots in healthcare include cutting costs, around-the-clock availability, faster query resolution, and convenience. They also collect patient data and provide anonymity which many users value. Chatbots should comply with requirements based on the region where they are used. For example, chatbots should account for GDPR in Europe or HIPAA in the United States. Frequently Asked Questions
How are chatbots used in healthcare?
What are the advantages of chatbots in healthcare?
What regulatory requirements must healthcare chatbots meet?
Read also:
About the author:
Alexey Shalimov, CEO at Eastern Peak
As CEO at Eastern Peak, a professional software consulting and development company, Alexey ensures top quality and cost-effective services to clients from all over the world. Alexey is also a founder and technology evangelist at several technology companies. Previously, as a CEO of the Gett (GetTaxi) technology company, Alexey was in charge of developing the revolutionary Gett service from ground up and deploying the operation across the globe from New York to London and Tel Aviv.
