AI Avatars in Healthcare: Redefining Patient Service with AI Assistance

In recent years, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have paved the way for groundbreaking innovations in various aspects of our lives, and the healthcare industry stands as a domain that actively embraces this transformative potential.

AI avatars in Healthcare have emerged as a promising solution that empowers both patients and healthcare professionals with innovative tools for care delivery. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, these digital assistants offer a more personalized and efficient approach to ensuring patient well-being. From helping with triage processes to affording mental health counseling, AI avatars are reforming the way medical professionals can provide treatment.  

Below, we’ll explore the main advantages of AI avatars’ integration within healthcare institutes and how this technology can help to cope with the most common problems of customer service practice in this branch.

Problems of the Traditional Healthcare System

The challenges the healthcare industry faces often mirror those encountered in the Banking sector – high operational costs due to the necessity to keep a team of entry-level customer specialists for resolving plain tasks, limited specialists’ availability because of fixed working hours, lack of personalization due to time scarcity and human factors, and so on.

In addition to the above-stated issues, the industry is currently grappling with a healthcare professional shortage, particularly in rural or underserved areas. In such contexts, AI-powered avatars can present a viable solution by giving consultations and care remotely via digital channels, allowing patients to receive medical guidance and support from the comfort of their own homes. 

One more substantial challenge the AI virtual healthcare assistants can be addressed is providing digital customer service for clients with mobility and visual or hearing impairment issues. Avatars’ ability to handle the whole interaction via voice or sign language enables such patients to make full use of digital services unaided. 

Medical errors are also a significant problem in healthcare since they can have severe consequences for both patient and doctor. AI-driven digital assistants can help human specialists conduct precise analyses of medical data, including providing real-time alerts or cautions regarding potential risks and safety concerns (e.g., when implementing a new treatment plan for a patient).

These are just some of the primary challenges afflicting the current healthcare system, although in fact there are many others to contend with. So let’s discover how caregivers can leverage AI avatars to alleviate their work. 

Benefits of AI Adoption within Healthcare

Incorporating AI-based digital assistants into the existing medical system proves to be an invaluable asset for human doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers, due to streamlining processes and providing numerous advantages like:

• Enhanced accessibility: digital AI avatars offer round-the-clock healthcare services available from anywhere through smartphone, tablet, or laptop (the web version), as well as through on-site stands and holographic devices like METABOX, typically placed in medical institutions.
• Patient engagement: involving patients in their own care is vital to improving health outcomes. With an AI-driven healthcare assistant always at hand, a customer can track their treatment process and get relevant information on prescribed medication – all in personalized conversations with a digital human-like helper. This lets clients understand their health condition better and take proactive steps to manage it.
• Increased productivity: human-like AI avatars can automatically carry out routine tasks like scheduling appointments and answering basic questions. This allows healthcare providers to devote more time to personalized patient care.
• Personalized service: being fueled with AI, digital medical assistants are able to perform a thorough analysis of a patient’s medical history and treatment dynamics, taking into consideration all the nuances and possible mutual influence of different illnesses. This makes it possible to prescribe more effective drugs (eliminating those with predictable side effects for a particular patient) and develop customized disease-prevention strategies.
• Prescription verification: AI-powered technologies allow for automating the prescription verification process, making it much quicker and more accurate. And with the in-built fraud detection system, AI avatar can recognize fraudulent prescriptions and alert pharmacy staff to potential issues.
• Improved data analysis: due to the AI avatar’s ability to quickly sort out large volumes of patient medical history and provide doctors with insights into it, it becomes easier for human specialists to make the diagnosis and establish the proper treatment plan, thus improving patient outcomes.
• Patient safety: by providing accurate information and flagging potential issues, AI-driven avatars can help to reduce errors and eliminate human tendentiousness when revising patient cases.

In addition, AI avatars possess a wide range of skill sets, meaning you don’t have to train them for every task — just teach them the required language and desired interaction scenarios. This flexibility allows AI avatars to adapt seamlessly to various roles and responsibilities, facilitating the implementation process and saving valuable time and resources. 

Altogether, this increases patient satisfaction and loyalty since the given services become much more thorough, attentive, and personalized. 

Practical AI Avatar Appliances in Healthcare

AI avatars can serve as a help desk, placed in clinics and medical centers, or as a web-integrated helper, available at healthcare institution web-site. 

When a client addresses this option, a human-like digital assistant will appear and propose topics for communication, guiding them further through the process in a conversational style. By the way, patients can also choose the language they want to be served in, which brings extra convenience and helps to eliminate misunderstandings caused by language barriers, significantly increasing service scores. 

AI avatars can come in handy in almost all facilities of the healthcare industry. Below we’ll pay attention to two of them – pharmacy and hospital – as the most major ones.

AI Avatar Services for Pharmacy

In this branch, AI-powered digital helpers can assist pharmacists and pharmacy staff in their daily work, as well as afford patients a prompt and efficient selection of medicines without involving human specialists.

1. 1. Medication without prescription

Here, you can specify the required drug, and an AI avatar will give you the list of this medication and its analogs, proposed by different pharmacy firms and in various form factors and dosages. All you have to do is choose what you need and pay for the purchase, while an AI-powered pharmacist will assist with its ordering, ensuring that the chosen medication is delivered directly to your home or a nearby pharmacy.

2. 2. Medication with prescription

If the drug you require is available only by prescription, it should be checked. An AI avatar will propose you choose the way you want to accomplish this – for example, by scanning your physical recipe through your device camera. Or, if you possess an electronic prescription, you can either authorize using your e-signature or pass the identity verification by scanning your passport and face. The rest of the procedure is similar to the one described above.

3. 3. Pharmacist consultation

In case you are unsure which medication you need but want to find something that will help you treat your health condition, an AI avatar can offer basic pharmacist advice. To receive personalized recommendations, simply provide information about your symptoms and any allergy triggers you may have. 

An AI healthcare assistant will diligently analyze the received data, taking into account crucial factors such as potential drug interactions, allergies, and other relevant considerations. If your issue is not too complicated, it will pick the best medication to suit you and find where to buy it. Otherwise, the data you’ve provided will be formed into an inquiry and sent to a human pharmacist who will raise a due decision and prescribe the appropriate drug.

In all of these cases, an AI-powered digital assistant can read out loud the components of the proposed drug, warnings, and contraindications. It can also explain how the medication should aid you and give instructions on its proper use and dosage, delivering this information in the preferred language. 

Moreover, an AI avatar can also be programmed to offer timely reminders and notifications, ensuring that medications are taken as prescribed. This proactive approach helps individuals stay on track with their treatment plans, promoting adherence and overall medication management.

AI-based Services for Medical Centers & Hospitals

Speaking about AI avatars’ employment in medical institutions, here these human-like digital assistants can carry out such jobs:

1. 1. Patient onboarding

If a new client has approached, an AI avatar can lead them through the whole registration process, including identity verification and creating a personal patient’s web cabinet, giving them access to the entire range of available services.

A digital AI assistant can also assist the already existing clients in authorizing their access to the web-based cabinet, where they can view essential information such as their medical history, list of planned appointments and procedures, prescribed medications, etc.

2. 2. General consulting

As a digital hospital clerk, an AI human can provide information on available medical services, procedures, and doctors’ schedules. They can also help patients to arrange an appointment, find the way to the required cabinet, check their test results, get details on insurance coverage, and so on – all such organizational issues can be solved in a simple voice conversation like with a real human worker. 

In addition, an AI avatar can offer patients valuable health education and information, addressing queries about conditions and treatments, and sharing practical tips and advice for maintaining optimal well-being. Furthermore, it can provide a wealth of resources related to health, including coping strategies, self-help tools, and community support networks. By delivering comprehensive and accessible information, digital AI  caregivers empower individuals to make informed decisions about their health and promote holistic self-care.

3. 3. Processing data from tracking devices and sensors

One more available feature is that AI avatars can be programmed to collect and process data from the launched patients’ tracking devices, including wearable technology, smart scales, and smartwatches. This data can include vital signs such as heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature, as well as activity levels, sleep patterns, and other parameters. 

Once the health metrics are collected, a digital AI assistant uses machine learning algorithms to analyze them and identify patterns or anomalies. This analysis can help to recognize potential health issues or changes in the owner’s health status, with their further communication to the patient’s doctor through an electronic health record system or a connected messaging platform. When a doctor receives the appropriate notification, they can review the tracking history and take the proper measures, e.g. prescribing drugs or scheduling a medical consultation. Such ongoing control of the patient’s condition can be an invaluable aid in chronic disease management, alleviating the significant time burden on healthcare professionals.

4. 4. Mental health support

Another remarkable opportunity presented by healthcare-devoted AI avatars is the provision of mental health support, catering to individuals who may feel hesitant about seeking traditional therapy or counseling. The in-built conversational AI program uses NLP (natural language processing) and machine learning to simulate a dialog, where an AI avatar can ask questions, listen to responses, and provide feedback and resources based on an individual’s needs.

This innovative solution ensures personalized and confidential psychotherapeutic aid while leveraging the 24/7 accessibility and convenience of AI avatars. Moreover, the avatar’s personality and communication style can be customized based on the individual’s preferences and needs – for example, it can be programmed to be warm and friendly or more clinical and straightforward. 

Providing a safe and non-judgmental virtual environment, such digital psychotherapists can empower patients to proactively manage their mental well-being without the fear of being misunderstood or ashamed. 

Conclusion

It is apparent that AI avatars are proving to be a game-changer in the healthcare landscape. They can help to bridge the gap between patients and caregivers, simultaneously easing the workload of healthcare professionals and improving overall operational efficiency within healthcare institutions.

What do you think about such an innovative caregiving approach? Contact us at your convenience to share your thoughts and get answers to any of your questions!