ORLANDO—AI-powered virtual care assistants are reshaping patient care and empowering healthcare workers, but providers need to know how to build trust as technology evolves, experts say said at a press conference. HIMSS24 pre-conference Virtual care forum on monday.
Matt Cybulsky, founder and consultant at Ionian Healthcare Consulting, led the discussion below. Build trust in virtual agents and chatbots. Andy Chu, Senior Vice President of Product and Technology Incubation providence healthand Kathleen Mazza, clinical informatics consultant. northwell healthparticipated in the panel.
Mazza said Northwell has been using chatbots since 2018, and the move was made because chatbots were able to „get ahead of the curve“ when New York became the epicenter of the coronavirus in 2020. He described it as a „coincidence.“
“We are working to reduce avoidable hospital readmissions, starting with Medicare-eligible people, and in the first 30 days after discharge from hospital, we are using emergency medical care developed for Medicare-identified high-risk diagnoses: heart failure, COPD, and stroke. We used chatbots with targeted chats,” she said. she said.
Mazza said patients want to be connected to the health care system even outside the hospital walls, and it is the organization's responsibility to provide that connection.
Chu added that many patients are now turning to technologies such as chatbots, which are similar to text messaging. The key is to proactively determine why patients use these platforms.
„Nearly 40% of the messages patients ask chatbots have nothing to do with clinical questions. They are administrative questions, such as billing, appointment, and medication questions,“ he said. .
Providence recently released a feature that allows patients to ask a chatbot if they qualify for financial assistance.
„These are the kinds of things that we try to proactively address as patients try to find care and navigate the entire system,“ Chu said.
Significant challenges remain when it comes to ensuring that the AI algorithms behind the interface are working correctly.
„We're starting to see that we're not meeting standards in certain categories, and we call this drift,“ Chu explained. „Then we go into the model and see what's going on and how we have to continue to evolve.“
Mazza said it's important to ensure that conversations between patients and chatbots or virtual agents are meaningful.
“When a conversation becomes a 10-minute task, it becomes a chore for the patient,” she warned. “Please note that if you do not act on the information, we will simply add additional questions.”
Mazza and Chu agreed that building patient trust and confidence in chatbots is essential and takes time. They pointed out that ensuring quick and seamless connectivity with human presence must always be a priority.
„The chatbot we use has a phone icon on the screen, and when the patient answers a series of questions that trigger an alert, the nurse receives the alert and is asked to speak to the patient.“ Mazza said. „You need a human being at the end somewhere. You're not selling shoes to people online. This is health care.“