With a market size of $1.6 billion, it’s fair to say that chatbots in healthcare are a massive financial success. But money isn’t the only factor, of course, and nothing speaks louder about the benefits of chatbots for healthcare than research on their usability. Today, we want to highlight how healthcare chatbots are improving patients’ lives.
What is a Healthcare Chatbot?
A chatbot in healthcare is a piece of software that handles communication with patients, be it registering them for a visit, processing their requests, or giving advice on basic issues. These are often AI-powered, though some basic multiple-choice forms can also work.
However, the focus of this article is, indeed, on AI chatbot technology in healthcare, as it’s the kind of refined solution that can actually bring tangible advantages for patients. Simpler versions are more of a gateway patients must pass to reach a doctor. These, though, can be their own independent service.
Key Benefits of Chatbots in Healthcare
We’ll get right into it with a list of the current positives that chatbots in healthcare bring to the table. The beautiful part here is that this list can only grow as chatbots become more refined and fill new duties.
24/7 Availability
Chatbots are always available, unlike human employees who need time off, work in shifts, and may be too busy to respond. Nothing bar some technical issues that could disrupt their service, and patients are sure to appreciate this reliability.
Enhanced Patient Engagement
Another benefit of chatbots in healthcare is that they can easily find the right approach to patients and get more information from them. This structured communication could make patients more likely to give accurate self-assessments and describe their symptoms in detail.
Cost Reduction for Healthcare Providers
Chatbots can perform the work of an entire department at a fraction of the cost, and their optimized patient processing means an increase in throughput. As a result, income rises while expenses decline.
Quick Access to Critical Information
Bots can be used to instantly check up on a patient’s medical history, manage their doctor visits, or reach out to them. As a lot of this can also be automated, you get easy access to all types of patient management processes, all through one chatbot.
Increased Efficiency and Reduced Waiting Times
Without waiting online (or in line, indeed), patients can see a specialist faster and end up satisfied with the quick service. As we perfect the usage of chatbots in healthcare, wait times should become pretty much a non-issue.
Improved Patient Satisfaction
Since expenses will decline, you’ll be able to offer more competitive prices, which is sure to please patients. Moreover, the lack of waiting and an always-available help system are yet another boost to an institution’s reputation.
Greater Convenience for Patients and Providers
Being able to book a doctor’s appointment or get a diagnosis via chatbots in healthcare is quite handy, essentially acting as a mini-clinic in one’s phone. Meanwhile, providers can easily check doctors’ schedules and patient info for maximum convenience.
Reducing Human Error
Data shows that an AI chatbot in healthcare can not only replace parts of human interaction but improve upon it. Bots don’t misremember information and don’t make typos, making patient data processing more efficient and precise.
Confidentiality and Privacy Assurance
Chatbots are never tempted to share secrets and, with proper implementation, their information is protected from all potential risk vectors. As long as you’re working with a skilled team to integrate your chatbot, it will be an overall positive for your patients’ privacy.
Continuous Learning and Adaptation
Chatbots in healthcare will only get better as time goes by, and they train on real-life cases and patients, refining their responses and diagnosing. This should logically lead to further cost decreases and higher patient satisfaction overall.
Enhanced Data Insights
Chatbots turn patient interactions into valuable insights, by capturing patterns and trends across thousands of conversations. Analytics helps make smarter decisions about patient care and automation processes.
Enhanced Healthcare Data Insights
Medical chatbots do more than just assist patients—they also gather valuable data, identifying key patterns across thousands of interactions. These digital tools transform scattered information into clear, structured reports, helping doctors detect potential health issues early. This data-driven approach enables smarter decision-making in patient care and improves the allocation of medical resources.
Enhanced Data Analytics
Healthcare chatbots turn patient interactions into valuable insights, capturing patterns and trends across thousands of conversations. These digital tools organize unstructured health data into clear reports, helping doctors spot potential health issues early. The resulting analytics drive smarter decisions about patient care and resource allocation.
10 Healthcare Chatbots Use Cases
That’s certainly a lot of benefits but you may be asking what this impressive technology should be used for. While each company can decide for itself, we’ll share ten potential use cases that cover different strengths of chatbots.
1. Appointment Scheduling
A simple but effective function that saves time and streamlines doctors’ work - patients can sign up for a visit or an online consultation through a chatbot. These should be able to amend the visit time as needed, offer a follow-up visit, or provide basic help while the visit is pending.
2. Symptom Assessment and Triage
Well-trained healthcare chatbots can replace doctors for basic diagnosing, rating a patient’s symptoms to determine if there is a need for emergency care. Bots can also make decisions on placing people into in-facility care or collect updates on their status.
3. Prescription Refills and Medication Reminders
Instead of waiting for a doctor to do it manually, patients can use a chatbot to confirm their identity and request a refill on their meds. Similarly, bots can remind when to take medication and request feedback on the patient’s condition after medicine intake.
4. Providing Mental Health Support
While chatbots in healthcare aren’t on the same level as human beings yet, they can be indispensable to people in crisis. Sometimes, all they need is someone to talk to, and a bot can provide that service while also suggesting further contact with human staff.
5. Collecting Patient Data and Feedback
Doing patient surveys is quite time-consuming and takes nursing staff away from more complex tasks. It’s entirely possible to delegate this to bots who will collect this data from entire hospital wings in the same time it’d take to manually process one patient. Bots can also filter out irrelevant information and relay only core details.
6. Offering Health Advice and Education
Bots can also act as interactive knowledge bases so that patients don’t need to contact a doctor for just a simple question, instead looking up advice on their own devices. This obviously shouldn’t replace full medical care, but is a handy educational tool.
7. Assisting with Insurance Claims
Patients should be able to contact chatbots in healthcare to file, amend, and cancel insurance claims, while healthcare institutions can use them to auto-approve or filter claims. Plus, they can summarize lengthy claims to make work with them easier.
8. Providing Personalized Wellness Recommendations
With enough training, healthcare chatbots will be able to “understand” patients better and give recommendations based on the information they have. This includes dietary restrictions, medical history, patient preferences, and more.
9. Guiding Post-Procedure Care
Chatbots can offer regular check-ins to make sure patients are following recovery tips completely. They can take information on the patients’ status and relay it to doctors in case any further intervention is required.
10. Connecting Patients to Healthcare Providers
Chatbots can listen to a patient’s symptoms and assign them to visit a specific specialist, establishing a match with no time wasted. Plus, they can service telehealth apps, optimizing their flow and handling recording duties and patient communication.
Overcoming Challenges in Healthcare Chatbot Integration
As is often the case with new technologies, you may encounter some friction when you introduce chatbots in healthcare. We’ll give a few practical tips on dealing with these to make your journey easier.
Addressing Data Privacy and Security Concerns
Inform users about your data processing and storage practices and lay out how your solution complies with privacy-centric regulations. This should alleviate some concerns while implementing security measures will be a practical step toward building trust.
Ensuring Accuracy and Reliability
Never prioritize faster responses or new features above thorough testing and model training. It’s crucial that your healthcare chatbots serve accurate diagnoses and don’t upset patients. Focus on making your chatbot as error-proof as possible, as even a single mistake could be very costly. It’s better to invest in quality than end up paying more later.
Overcoming Patient Hesitation with AI
Some patients, especially elderly ones, may be averse to using AI, but that’s not a universal issue. As long as your healthcare chatbots provide a quality service, most people shouldn’t have a problem with them. For those hesitant, try offering non-AI customer support while integrating smaller AI-powered functions until the patient warms up to the idea of using AI in healthcare.
Examples of AI Chatbots in Healthcare
While theoretical talk about the benefits of chatbots is nice, we want to illustrate it with some real-life examples. Here are a couple of successful chatbots for healthcare.
Ada Health
This chatbot is a veteran of the field, running since 2016. Its focus is on giving free health advice and analyzing patients’ symptoms to diagnose them. It wins people over with its accessibility, which has helped it amass 13 million users over its lifetime.
Youper
While many healthcare chatbots are all about servicing hospitals, Youper is focused on daily mental health journeys. Offering a free 7-day trial and a paid annual subscription, the app has drawn in more than a million users that use its AI-powered features. Youper provides a safe space for those needing support and serves as a place to learn about mental health.
The Future of AI Chatbots in Healthcare
Even though healthcare chatbots are already pretty exciting, there’s even more to come. Here’s how JetBase sees the future of this technology.
Trends in AI and Machine Learning Advancements
The larger changes in the AI landscape will undoubtedly affect the future of chatbots in healthcare. As models grow “smarter” and learn to perform more functions, you can expect chatbots to take on more work. Plus, as machine learning algorithms become better, training healthcare chatbots will be easier and less costly.
Potential for Increased Personalization in Patient Care
A heavy focus on providing a personal touch can make patients happier with their chatbot experience and provide better treatment results. Plus, chatbots for healthcare can then simulate more actions that are usually handled by human staff.
Integration with Wearables and Other Health Tech
Chatbots that connect to wearables or medical devices can warn patients of spikes in heart rates or other dangerous situations. Plus, they can then provide tips on managing health issues and prompt a call to the doctor when necessary.
The Evolving Role of Chatbots in Telemedicine and Virtual Care
Possible healthcare chatbot use cases for virtual care involve acting as a “waiting room” before a call with a doctor, as well as handling notes for each visit. Plus, they can serve advice and responses when the doctor isn’t available, helping patients in a pinch.
Ready to Implement Chatbots in Your Healthcare Practice?
All this talk of benefits and bright futures probably makes you want to implement your own chatbot technology in healthcare. Here’s how to proceed.
Key Steps for Successful Chatbot Integration
The first step to chatbots in healthcare is to train them with extensive data. You’re essentially teaching an LLM to do a medical professional’s work, so put in the time to perfect them. Plus, teach staff how to operate the bots and source data from them.
Choosing the Right Chatbot Platform for Your Healthcare Needs
The use of chatbots in healthcare is only as successful as the platform you pick. Do you build the chatbot on-premise or using a cloud provider? What’s your tech stack? How does it process and store data? All of these questions must be answered and, usually, that entails partnering up with a team of experts.
Best Practices for Ongoing Chatbot Optimization and Patient Support
As we said, training chatbots for healthcare is vital. But so is continuously improving them using real-life cases, as well as the experience of your competitors. Incorporate patient feedback, too, as they are the ones who interface with healthcare chatbots and know their possible flaws.
Need Help with Implementation?
Better communication with patients and lower costs are just some of the benefits of chatbots in healthcare. If you want to revitalize patient care and use the latest technologies to achieve new heights, you’ve come to the right place.
JetBase has more than a decade of experience with custom solutions, including work with healthcare and AI. We can help you implement a chatbot solution for healthcare that changes the way you approach and improve patient interactions. Let’s get started by scheduling a consultation.
