How can a patient be recognized, and what distinguishes a chatbot from an AI-powered virtual assistant designed for healthcare?

Photo: Adem AY

In the healthcare sector that keeps going forward with digitalization, patient recognition as well as recognition between chatbots and virtual health assistants is crucial for personalized and effective care. Differentiating between chatbots and healthcare-focused virtual assistants relies on many different factors. Let's see some of the main differences between the two.

Recognizing patients

Recognizing patients in healthcare can be done using different methods. Recognizing patients is essential for personalized care, efficient communication, data accuracy, patient engagement, and overall patient experience. It can be done through the following methods:

• User authentication. Using this method patients are recognized via their credentials during the log-in process.

• Personal information. Patients can choose to provide their personal information such as their name, address, and phone number for authentication.

• Electronic health records (EHR). Digitalization has allowed for the creation of EHR. These are used for the seamless and easy identification of patients in healthcare.

Distinguishing chatbots from virtual health assistants

While they have their own similarities, chatbots greatly differ from virtual health assistants. The main difference is the technology behind them. Regular chatbots utilize many of the features available to virtual health assistants, however, virtual health assistants use brand-new, innovative technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing to increase their efficiency in communication and operational capabilities.

Aside from their integrated processing capabilities and the technology they utilize, there is a contextual understanding that is different between chatbots and virtual health assistants. Chatbots can provide a range of responses but this range is often very limited. That means that they cannot maintain a conversation. AI-powered virtual assistants for healthcare can understand the specific context of medical conversations and can communicate with patients. Using a natural processing engine or NLP for short, AI responds to patients' inquiries in a more human-like manner. With proper implementation, patients may never even notice that they are communicating with a virtual health assistant.

Furthermore, virtual health assistants can be fully integrated into a clinic's healthcare operations such as administrative tasks, scheduling, rescheduling, etc. This means that next to regular communication with patients, virtual health assistants can also help medical centers with many different administrative tasks.

Empathy and intelligence of virtual health assistants - The key difference

While there are many other minor differences that were not listed here, empathy plays a huge part in forming what we know as virtual health assistants in healthcare. These virtual assistants can incorporate empathy and emotional intelligence features to provide a more compassionate and supportive interaction with patients. Each patient can be approached in a different manner depending on their needs, healthcare history, overall healthcare journey, and response time.

By acknowledging and addressing patients' emotional needs, healthcare providers can create a more compassionate and supportive environment. Virtual health assistants using machine learning and advanced natural language processing have the ability to respond to each patient's emotional state effectively thus providing patients with highly personalized care where they feel comfortable and have easy access to their medical center services.