Implementation of a digital chatbot to screen health system employees during the COVID-19 pandemic

Judson, Timothy; Odisho, Anobel Y.; Young, Jerry J; Bigazzi, Olivia; Steuer, David; Gonzales, Ralph; Neinstein, Aaron B.

doi:10.1093/jamia/ocaa130

Cited by 97 publications

(111 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Additionally, our review showed that health chatbots were used in multiple domains. The most prevalent domains were preventive care and risk communication (n=3) ( 3 , 9 , 12 ), public health surveillance by health officials (n=2) ( 2 , 10 ), Telehealth (n=2) ( 1 , 11 ), workplace health and safety (n=1) ( 13 ), and care of the elderly (n=1) ( 14 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health Chatbots for Fighting COVID-19: a Scoping Review

Almalki

Azeez

2020

Acta Inform Med

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Background: Health chatbots are rising in popularity and capability for fighting the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (COVID-19). Objectives: This study aims to review the current literature on COVID-19 related chatbots in healthcare, identify and characterize these emerging technologies and their applications for combating COVID-19, and describe related challenges. Methods: The authors conducted a scoping review of peer-reviewed literature on COVID-19, guided by the Arksey and O’Malley framework. PubMed/MEDLINE and Google Scholar were searched over a period between January and September 2020 by using the keywords “COVID* chatbot”, “virtual assistant”, “AI enabled platform COVID” and associated synonyms. Relevant studies’ references were checked for further articles. The content of these studies was screened and thematically analyzed by the two authors. Results: Out of 543 articles initially identified, 9 were eligible for inclusion. Studies describing chatbots’ development and architecture (n=6) were the most common, and only 3 empirical studies on the user experience were identified. Our scoping review identified five key applications of the current health chatbots, which were: disseminating health information and knowledge; self-triage and personal risk assessment; monitoring exposure and notifications; tracking COVID-19 symptoms and health aspects; and combating misinformation and fake news. Furthermore, these technologies can accomplish the following tasks: ask and answer questions; create health records and history of use; complete forms and generate reports; and take simple actions. Nonetheless, the use of health chatbots poses many challenges both at the level of the social system (i.e., consumers’ acceptability) as well as the technical system (i.e., design and usability). Conclusion: Using health chatbots to combat COVID-19 is a practice still in its infancy. We believe that our work will help researchers in this domain gain better understanding of this novel technology’s design and applications, which are needed for continuous improvement in the health chatbots’ functionalities and their usefulness to fight COVID-19.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health Chatbots for Fighting COVID-19: a Scoping Review

Almalki

Azeez

2020

Acta Inform Med

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“…Amazon released Alexa VA features to help users setup routines during staying at home and providing tips, information, and guidance about COVID-19 16 . Frameworks for COVID-19 screening with chatbots have been proposed and implemented at healthcare institutions 17,18 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Readiness for voice assistants to support healthcare delivery during a health crisis and pandemic

et al. 2020

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To prevent the spread of COVID-19 and to continue responding to healthcare needs, hospitals are rapidly adopting telehealth and other digital health tools to deliver care remotely. Intelligent conversational agents and virtual assistants, such as chatbots and voice assistants, have been utilized to augment health service capacity to screen symptoms, deliver healthcare information, and reduce exposure. In this commentary, we examined the state of voice assistants (e.g., Google Assistant, Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa) as an emerging tool for remote healthcare delivery service and discussed the readiness of the health system and technology providers to adapt voice assistants as an alternative healthcare delivery modality during a health crisis and pandemic.

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“…Symptoma, a symptom-to-disease digital health assistant using AI, has been shown to be highly accurate when screening for COVID-19 [ 65 ]. Similarly, chatbots have been used to rapidly screen health care workers for COVID-19, facilitating staff movements and minimizing nosocomial transmission [ 66 ]. By extension, AI-based chatbots can provide a platform for patients with non–COVID-19 conditions to receive medical care at a time when clinical resources are limited.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Artificial Intelligence for COVID-19: Rapid Review

Chen¹,

See²

2020

J Med Internet Res

119

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Background COVID-19 was first discovered in December 2019 and has since evolved into a pandemic. Objective To address this global health crisis, artificial intelligence (AI) has been deployed at various levels of the health care system. However, AI has both potential benefits and limitations. We therefore conducted a review of AI applications for COVID-19. Methods We performed an extensive search of the PubMed and EMBASE databases for COVID-19–related English-language studies published between December 1, 2019, and March 31, 2020. We supplemented the database search with reference list checks. A thematic analysis and narrative review of AI applications for COVID-19 was conducted. Results In total, 11 papers were included for review. AI was applied to COVID-19 in four areas: diagnosis, public health, clinical decision making, and therapeutics. We identified several limitations including insufficient data, omission of multimodal methods of AI-based assessment, delay in realization of benefits, poor internal/external validation, inability to be used by laypersons, inability to be used in resource-poor settings, presence of ethical pitfalls, and presence of legal barriers. AI could potentially be explored in four other areas: surveillance, combination with big data, operation of other core clinical services, and management of patients with COVID-19. Conclusions In view of the continuing increase in the number of cases, and given that multiple waves of infections may occur, there is a need for effective methods to help control the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite its shortcomings, AI holds the potential to greatly augment existing human efforts, which may otherwise be overwhelmed by high patient numbers.

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Implementation of a digital chatbot to screen health system employees during the COVID-19 pandemic

Cited by 97 publications

References 4 publications

Health Chatbots for Fighting COVID-19: a Scoping Review

Health Chatbots for Fighting COVID-19: a Scoping Review

Readiness for voice assistants to support healthcare delivery during a health crisis and pandemic

Artificial Intelligence for COVID-19: Rapid Review

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