The growing popularity of chatbots in healthcare seems something more than just a passing healthcare technology trend. The global healthcare chatbots market is projected to reach $431.47 million by 2028 at a CAGR of 15.20% over the 2022–2028 period.
Is it surprising? Not really. As AI-driven technologies become smarter and more advanced, more and more industries are considering utilizing such solutions. This includes healthcare.
Read further to learn how using AI chatbots in healthcare can help both patients and medical institutions to achieve their goals and improve their well-being.
Areas of healthcare where chatbots are gaining momentum
These days, examples of artificial intelligence in app development are present in various industries, healthcare included.
Here’s how chatbots are used in different areas of healthcare.
Patient engagement
No matter how the healthcare industry is evolving, there are still patients who feel wary about seeing a doctor and postpone any treatment they need as much as possible. This often happens because they find the overall experience quite stressful.
Chatbots for healthcare can aid in changing that by setting up appointments with doctors, answering patients' questions, and reminding them of things like medication schedules. This helps build a stronger connection between patients and healthcare providers.
Telemedicine
Telemedicine helps people from different regions get access to high-quality professionals that might not be present in their area. As this industry develops, chatbots are becoming essential tools for virtual healthcare interactions. They help set up remote consultations and assist with post-consultation follow-ups, making telehealth services more efficient and accessible.
Triage and diagnostics
Chatbots that use natural language processing (NLP) and diagnostic algorithms can assist in patient triage and improve the efficiency of diagnostics. For instance, they can conduct triaging by asking questions to the patients and helping them find the most appropriate doctor, service, or clinic. They also can help healthcare providers prioritize urgent cases and guide patients to appropriate levels of care based on their symptoms.
Mental health
Taking care of mental health has always been important, but it’s become even more crucial after the COVID-19 pandemic started. The beginning of the pandemic led to a 28% increase in the number of anxiety and depressive disorders.
Luckily, AI chatbots in healthcare can also be used for helping with mental health issues. They can provide coping strategies, offer therapeutic advice, and even detect signs of crisis to connect patients with professional help when needed. Furthermore, as this approach feels more confidential, affordable, and non-judgmental, it can be used even by those individuals who don’t feel comfortable yet about turning to healthcare professionals.
Patient education
Chatbots can educate patients and offer them various tips and suggestions to promote healthy behaviors. They can offer information on medical conditions, treatment options, and lifestyle recommendations to help patients take care of their health on a daily basis.
Top 7 benefits of AI chatbots in healthcare
Using AI chatbots in the healthcare industry has lots of benefits. Let’s focus on the main ones:
1. Availability around the clock
Unlike healthcare professionals, medical chatbots are available 24/7. They can help patients identify symptoms and schedule medical appointments. This is also beneficial for healthcare businesses that use such chatbots. Even if they don’t work around the clock, by utilizing the chatbots they help patients feel like they are taken care of.
2. Critical information can be provided instantly
Time is of the essence, especially when it comes to healthcare. Chatbots can instantly deliver necessary information to patients, from their medical history to past records and treatment suggestions. This reduces the workload on human staff, helping them focus on more complex tasks and therefore improving overall operational efficiency.
Patients, on the other hand, receive all the information they need to make informed decisions about their health and medical needs.
3. Personalized care
Healthcare chatbots can analyze patient data and preferences to deliver personalized care recommendations. This, in turn, strengthens patient engagement and loyalty, enhancing the reputation of a medical organization and fostering long-term patient relationships.
At the same time, patients coming to your website receive not only the description of the symptoms but also healthcare advice and treatment plans that align with their specific needs and medical history.
4. Data collection for future reference
By asking questions and having conversations with patients, chatbots can collect their information. This information can be later used to gain insights into patient behavior and needs, helping healthcare organizations with data-driven decision-making and strategic planning.
This approach is beneficial for the patients too, because it makes their future interactions with the chatbot more personalized and efficient.
5. Cost-effective
Chatbots are great for automating routine tasks like appointment scheduling and various administrative inquiries. By doing so, they can reduce the need for human intervention, help allocate resources wisely, and therefore help organizations reduce costs.
6. Improved accuracy & consistency
Chatbot technology in healthcare can generate accurate responses based on predefined algorithms and medical knowledge, reducing the risk of errors and misinformation. This ensures that patients receive accurate information and guidance consistently. This also helps healthcare institutions to provide extended support to patients when doctors are unavailable.
7. Patient feedback collection
Using AI chatbots for hospitals to collect patient feedback is beneficial for both parties. These days, patients feel more comfortable sharing their honest feedback with chatbots, telling them what they think of the institution, healthcare professionals working there, and how they rate their experience. At the same time, the institutions could seize this opportunity to collect data that helps improve their workflow and reputation.
Use cases of AI chatbots in healthcare
As you probably see by now, chatbots can offer numerous benefits to healthcare organizations. The use of chatbots in healthcare is also very diverse.
For instance, they can be used to:
Schedule appointments
Standing in a long hospital queue or waiting on the phone until the next available call center operator reaches out to you and helps you set up an appointment can be unpleasant at the very least. Luckily, it can be changed with the help of chatbots for healthcare.
Such solutions can easily assist in scheduling appointments with healthcare providers. They can interact with patients, check the doctors’ availability, and book appointments based on the patient's preferences and the doctor's schedule. This not only saves time for both patients and staff but also reduces the possibility of errors in appointment scheduling.
Check for symptoms
Emergencies happen. When one arises, it might be difficult for the patient to figure out what to do. Does their condition require seeing a healthcare professional immediately? Or maybe they can work this out from their home with a little bit of online guidance?
AI-driven chatbots can help figure that out without patients having to even leave their house. They use natural language processing (NLP) and other advanced algorithms to provide insights based on the patient’s symptoms, their medical history, and other relevant factors. While this definitely won’t replace a visit to a doctor, it can at least help patients figure out if they should seek immediate medical attention.
Provide support
AI chatbots in the medical field can provide various forms of support, from 24/7 consultations to mental health aid and personalized healthcare recommendations. They can act as the first reliable sources of health information, assisting patients in making informed decisions about their health.
This could be a game changer for those who are unsure whether they should consult a healthcare professional or not (for instance, regarding a potential mental health issue they might have). Having a conversation with a chatbot can help them make their first steps toward the official diagnosis.
Improve processing of coverage and claims
A recent KFF study shows that in 2021, 17% of in-network claims were denied. Often this happens because of incorrect data, not proper claims process, and other things that chatbots can assist patients with.
They can explain health insurance coverage, help patients understand their benefits, and guide them through the overall claims process. This, in turn, can result in reduced administrative workload for healthcare organizations and enhanced patient satisfaction.
Enhance patient experience
Most of us would appreciate more structure, especially in such a sensitive niche as healthcare. Chatbots can help with that too.
For instance, they can send appointment reminders, follow up on post-treatment care, provide information about the prescribed medication (including dosage and potential side effects), and even help set up medication schedules. This helps improve patient engagement and loyalty and makes the overall healthcare experience less chaotic and stressful.
Examples of successful chatbots in healthcare
Let’s follow up with successful examples of chatbots in the healthcare niche.
1. Woebot
This chatbot, designed to provide mental health aid, is one of the prominent examples of AI in patient care. It focuses specifically on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) principles. Woebot engages users in daily conversations, offering emotional support, coping strategies, and psychological education. It uses NLP and ML algorithms to tailor its responses to individual users' needs. Woebot has gained popularity for its accessibility and the potential to help people manage stress, anxiety, and depression.
2. Florence
Florence is a medication management solution that works on Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Kik (Canadian messenger app). You use the chat to fill in the name of the medicine and the approximate schedule for its taking (how many times a day and at what time of the day). After that, the chatbot reminds you to take medications on time, provides useful information about the meds, and advises where to find the nearest pharmacy or doctor’s office.
3. Buoy Health
This chatbot uses ML to understand users' symptoms and offer appropriate treatment options, from self-care measures to recommending a visit to a nearby healthcare organization. Its algorithm continually improves its ability to accurately identify symptoms and provide relevant information and advice.
4. Ada
Ada chatbot also helps users understand their symptoms better. To do that, it initiates a conversation, asking you questions that could potentially help identify health conditions or concerns. Then the chatbot analyzes user responses and offers personalized insights. Ada is widely recognized for its user-friendly interface and accurate symptom analysis.
The potential risks of AI chatbots in the healthcare industry
The benefits of chatbots in healthcare are without a doubt impressive, but it would not be fair to emphasize only them without addressing the potential risks. As AI is a relatively new and rapidly developing industry, it has its challenges, which are important to learn when considering AI integrations for business.
Privacy and data security
AI chatbots often operate with sensitive patient information, which raises concerns about data privacy and security. Healthcare providers must ensure that proper encryption and security measures are taken to protect patient data from unauthorized access or breaches. Otherwise, the patients won’t feel safe sharing their confidential information with chatbots.
Misdiagnosis and inaccurate advice
Although AI chatbots are designed to provide medical information and assistance, the risk of misdiagnosis or inaccurate advice remains. The chatbots may not always correctly interpret user symptoms, which could result in various unpleasant consequences. This usually happens when they are trained using bad and flawed data or when they cannot identify if a patient exaggerates or undermines their symptoms.
Lack of human interaction
Some patients consider the anonymity and privacy of the chatbots a benefit. Some, however, don’t feel comfortable interacting with them and sharing their deep and personal worries because of the lack of human connection. While AI chatbots possess extensive knowledge of healthcare-related subjects, they still lack human empathy and understanding, which could be a dealbreaker in certain situations. Because of that, the use of AI chatbots in healthcare can also be considered ethically controversial.
Lack of trust toward healthcare professionals
As some users find it easier to interact with chatbots, they can start relying on their opinion too much. This could expose them to the risks of data hacking or lead to them self-diagnosing too frequently. When such patients don’t have enough experience and knowledge to doubt and verify the chatbot’s recommendations, this could lead to them not receiving proper treatment.
Regulations for the safe use of AI chatbots in healthcare
Due to the above-described challenges, both the US and the EU develop and implement various regulations and guidelines that could help use AI chatbots safely. These regulations focus on:
Data protection
Both regions have strict data protection laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the USA. This helps to safeguard patient data and ensure its secure handling by AI chatbots.
Medical device regulation
Those AI chatbots that provide medical advice or support may be classified as medical devices and therefore become subject to specific regulatory requirements. This is done to ensure their safety and effectiveness.
Transparency and accountability
Regulations require making it clear that the users are interacting with AI chatbots and not human specialists. The providers are also held accountable for any errors or misguidance resulting from the chatbot's responses.
Clinical validation
AI chatbots that offer medical advice or support must undergo clinical validation. This allows to ensure that they are accurate and safe before launching them in healthcare organizations.
Wrapping up
Do AI chatbots and healthcare work well together? Yes. At the moment, AI-driven chatbots can aid in many different areas of healthcare, from helping out with administrative tasks to offering all kinds of informational support.
Both patients and healthcare organizations can benefit from the usage of chatbots in many ways. The main perks for patients are the ability to reach out for help 24/7 and get primary diagnostics, and mental health aid. Healthcare institutions, on the other hand, can utilize chatbots to collect feedback, optimize appointment scheduling, and help medical personnel focus on more important tasks, while the less significant ones will be handled by AI-based solutions.
While certain challenges could influence the future of chatbots in healthcare, at the moment they seem like something that can be overcome. The important thing here is to adhere to all the data protections and regulations, use high-quality data to train chatbots, and implement them in areas that require little to no supervision.
If you are weighing the idea of utilizing AI chatbots for your company’s needs, Mind Studios is willing to come to your aid. It doesn’t matter if you want to create a ChatGPT-based app or to train a different type of chatbot for your needs — we can help you in any case.
With more than 10 years of experience in the software development market and a healthcare niche in particular, we have what it takes to create a high-quality custom solution for your business. Reach out to us for a free consultation and let’s start creating great projects together!
