AI in Healthcare Application Development: How Chatbots Are Digitizing Patient Care

Technology is expanding at a rapid pace, and the chatbot market is leading the pack. A recent study has revealed its surge at the rocket-speed and will reach $314 billion by 2023. So, there is no surprise that chatbot technology based on AI is seeing great demand among industries, and the healthcare industry is no exception.

Another study conducted in the USA has shown that most people need an app that they can use for remote healthcare consultation if given the choice. What does it indicate? It shows people are ready to utilize healthcare app solution to meet all their health needs wholeheartedly.

AI in the Healthcare Industry

The arrival of artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized healthcare application development. Now, AI is working as humans and can even operate or insert injection in patients with great precision. If implemented correctly, AI will prove to be the ultimate boon in the medical industry.

There has been tremendous growth in AI technology and is creating enormous opportunities to bring significant changes in the healthcare sector across the globe. It is expected that the market of AI in the healthcare sector will cross beyond $150 billion in 2026.

Chatbots in Healthcare Industry

Before moving forward, let’s first understand what does chatbot means? Basically, it is an AI-powered robotic application that runs automation using the services of the internet. They are mainly responsible for offering precise communication tools for efficient conversation via audio and textual messaging efficiently.

Chatbots technology in the medical industry consists of three parts and includes:

1. Task-Oriented Chatbots

These chatbots aim toward assisting health workers in offering virtual health checkups for patients by scheduling timely appointments.

2. Information-Oriented Chatbots

These chatbots focus on replying to the patient’s queries by keeping conversation simple, non-repetitive, and creative for successfully meeting their expectations.

3. Open/Close Domain Chatbots

These are domain-specific chatbots that offer detailed information about a disease, its symptoms, and other health issues to the patients, effectively.

Role of AI & Chatbot in the Healthcare Sector

AI is currently being utilized in almost every aspect of healthcare, from the detection of illness, research and development, and the discovery of a new drug for treatment. Moreover, it is also helping in automating the current existing healthcare structure at a fast pace.

Chatbots are playing a vital role in improvising the healthcare sector. It can help patients in getting better healthcare support and booking for consultation, thus negating the role of the customer support team.

Besides, they can diagnose any serious health conditions in patients. So, providing a better understanding of the symptoms to offer a better cure is easy for them. Moreover, they also assist health-workers in the collection of crucial health data from the patients. In this way, they can devote their time to sharpen their decision-making ability.

Changes brought by Chatbots in Healthcare Sector

AI-enabled chatbots are highly responsive. It is because they offer highly professional communication skills just as the human medical-worker does in front of their customers. Likewise, there is a low doctor-patient ratio in countries with feeble healthcare services. For them, chatbots are a boon as they will play a vital role in bringing significant improvement in basic healthcare services.

Here, there is a list of the notable changes that chatbots are bringing in revolutionizing the functioning of the healthcare industry:

A. Giving Personal Touch to the Diagnostic & Treatment Procedure

The most noteworthy aspect that until recently needed some revamp has been clinical decision-making. But the arrival of AI-powered chatbots has made it more effective. How? It has allowed medical professionals to suggest better treatment. How?

It instantaneously examines multiple factors at any given time to identify early symptoms of illness in a person through good diagnosis. In this way, there is a great chance of enhancing the early detection of lethal disease in a person that increases their chance of survival.

Furthermore, there has been tremendous improvement in the treatment procedure. How so? The answer is that the chatbots instantly check illness and inform the doctors to take necessary action. By this, prevention of the deterioration of the patient’s health can be stopped.

B. Avoids Escalation of Emergency Cases by Improving Medical Triaging

There are certain cases where there is an urgent need for a medical emergency that can’t be ignored at any cost. So, it becomes crucial to identify those cases with high priority and give them immediate attention.

In the current health crisis arising due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the best healthcare app solution shall be to use chatbots. They use AI to prioritize patients with an urgent need for getting triaging treatment. How can it be done?

The answer is simple! The patients have to enter their symptoms in the bot. Thereafter, it offers direction to take necessary actions to decrease the severity of the given situation. Moreover, it also makes the working of the health technicians easy by taking the patient’s input by itself. It thus leaves physicians to devout their time on infected cases with great efficacy.

C. Booking Appointment with Doctors is Easy with Chatbots

If one wants to get a more genuine understanding of the patient’s queries, then see their issue related to booking of the appointment with doctors. There is no need to worry as the chatbot guides the patients to get the necessary information and accomplish the transaction to have a successful appointment.

In addition, a chatbot can also book an appointment by contacting the hospital service center on their behalf and can check the calendar and find the best possible timeslot. What’s more, they can also assist patients in selecting the preferred doctors with great efficacy.

Moreover, they can also get confirmation, reschedule the appointment, and can even cancel it appropriately.

D. Chatbot: Best Option for Successful Patient Engagement

One lesser-known but most essential usage of AI-based chatbot in healthcare software development is in keeping patients highly and successfully engaged. So, those bots that work to engage doctors with patients efficiently are crucial to maintaining their health update and monitoring list.

Even more, they also offer an alert and reminder concerning taking medicine on time and following necessary precautions that give utmost satisfaction to the customers. So, the result is that patients will remain healthy, and even healthcare professionals will have more time to give to the patients getting treated in the hospitals.

E. Chatbots Support Healthcare to Retrieve Patient’s Information Appropriately

If one thinks that the benefits of chatbots are restricted only to the patients, then it is wrong guessing! Chatbots are equally profitable to the healthcare personnel. How? The answer is that they help in getting access to the health info of the previous patient that can be used in admitting new patients without compromising with their needs.

Why is it beneficial for the doctors? It is crucial as it helps the physicians to avail the medical history of the patients so that they can move in the right direction in offering a personal touch in offering better treatment. In this way, patients will remain healthy and can take a step to their normal life sooner.

Wrapping Up

So, chatbots have become a new craze in the world of the healthcare sector. Not only are they minimizing the communication gap between patients and doctors, but they are also digitalizing the whole healthcare functionalities.

Businesses all over the globe are devastated because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. So there is a new sense of opportunity prevailing in the air for the healthcare application development companies to catch it with both hands gracefully. The future belongs to digital technology, and AI-based chatbots will improvise the functioning of the medical sector to a great extent.