Healthcare Chatbots: Role of AI, Benefits, Future, Use Cases, Development

We identified 78 healthbot apps commercially available on the Google Play and Apple iOS stores. Healthbot apps are being used across 33 countries, including some locations with more limited penetration chatbots in healthcare industry of smartphones and 3G connectivity. The healthbots serve a range of functions including the provision of health education, assessment of symptoms, and assistance with tasks such as scheduling.

The health care sector is among the most overwhelmed by those needing continued support outside hospital settings, as most patients newly diagnosed with cancer are aged ≥65 years [72]. The integration of this application would improve patients’ quality of life and relieve the burden on health care providers through better disease management, reducing the cost of visits and allowing timely follow-ups. In terms of cancer therapy, remote monitoring can support patients by enabling higher dose chemotherapy drug delivery, reducing secondary hospitalizations, and providing health benefits after surgery [73-75]. The CancerChatbot by CSource is an artificial intelligence healthcare chatbot system for serving info on cancer, cancer treatments, prognosis, and related topics. This chatbot provides users with up-to-date information on cancer-related topics, running users’ questions against a large dataset of cancer cases, research data, and clinical trials.

Chatbots in Healthcare: Improving Patient Engagement and Experience

Still, it may not work for a doctor seeking information about drug dosages or adverse effects. First, the chatbot helps Peter relieve the pressure of his perceived mistake by letting him know it’s not out of the ordinary, which may restore his confidence; then, it provides useful steps to help him deal with it better. This allows doctors to process prescription refills in batch or automate them in cases where doctor intervention is not necessary. HealthJoy’s virtual assistant, JOY, can initiate a prescription review by inquiring about a patient’s dosage, medications, and other relevant information.

Hacking (1975) has reminded us of the dual nature between statistical probability and epistemic probability. Statistical probability is concerned with ‘stochastic laws of chance processes’, while epistemic probability gauges ‘reasonable degrees of belief in propositions quite devoid of statistical background’ (p. 12). Epistemic probability concerns our possession of knowledge, or information, meaning how much support is given by all the available evidence.

Mathematical discoveries from program search with large language models

The importance of providing correct answers has been found in previous studies (Nordheim et al. 2019, p. 25), which have ‘identified the perceived ability of software agents as a strong predictor of trust’. Conversely, automation errors have a negative effect on trust—‘more so than do similar errors from human experts’ (p. 25). However, the details of experiencing chatbots and their expertise as trustworthy are a complex matter. As Nordheim et al. have pointed out, ‘the answers not only have to be correct, but they also need to adequately fulfil the users’ needs and expectations for a good answer’ (p. 25). Importantly, in addition to human-like answers, the perceived human-likeness of chatbots in general can be considered ‘as a likely predictor of users’ trust in chatbots’ (p. 25). The ability to accurately measure performance is critical for continuous feedback and improvement of chatbots, especially the high standards and vulnerable individuals served in health care.

We acknowledge the difficulty in identifying the nature of systemic change and looking at its complex network-like structure in the functioning of health organisations. Nonetheless, we consider it important to raise this point when talking about chatbots and their potential breakthrough in health care. We suggest that new ethico-political approaches are required in professional ethics because chatbots can become entangled with clinical practices in complex ways. It is difficult to assess the legitimacy of particular applications and their underlying business interests using concepts drawn from universal AI ethics or traditional professional ethics inherited from bioethics. Insufficient consideration regarding the implementation of chatbots in health care can lead to poor professional practices, creating long-term side effects and harm for professionals and their patients. While we acknowledge that the benefits of chatbots can be broad, whether they outweigh the potential risks to both patients and physicians has yet to be seen.