Chatbots Increasing Efficiency in Healthcare Market

Chatbots are one of the prominent technologies currently being integrated into the healthcare system. The chatbots are not considered as the SaMD (software as medical device) as they do not participate in clinical decision-making process, rather, they act as the personal healthcare assistant as well as the trainer for its users.

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The usage of chatbots in the healthcare has gained popularity since 2013, when Babylon Health, the first healthcare chatbot company of the U.K. was launched. The company offered symptom checker chatbot and has started using the same chatbot as a health checker as well.

The industry comprises the bot developers, platform providers, content providers, and the interface providers. Since there are no regulatory bodies such as FDA and MHRA directly governing the usage of chatbots, launching the chatbot is convenient for the developers.

New start-ups are coming up with different chatbot application offerings. Consequently, no company has a majority of share in the market. For instance, while Babylon Health provides symptom assessment and health checker chatbot services in English, Intermedia’s Symptomate provides its symptom assessor in 10 different languages.

Different application areas for chatbots include mental health (Woebot Labs Inc, X²), medication reminder (to improve medication adherence) and post discharge instruction adherence to reduce the incidence of readmissions in the hospitals. Examples of chatbots ensuring adherence to medicines and to the instructions are Florence, NorthWell Chats. The upcoming applications include its usage in life sciences and pharmaceutical industry (Lupin’s Anya).

Though the industry has a significant number of start-ups, it has also gained attention of big players such as Microsoft Corporation, Google LLC, and Amazon.com, Inc. While these giant players have shown interest in the industry; they are yet to launch any product. Currently, they are entering the market either as platform providers or as investors of different start-ups. For instance, Google LLC, instead of launching its own chatbot in the market, has developed its funding program called Google Assistant Investment Program Fund. In September 2018, the company funded a start-up Aiva Health. The start-up was also funded by Amazon.com, Inc to develop a voice assistant that can guide elderly people to connect with their care givers by using Google Home or Alexa. A significant reason for this trend is that as investors, these companies hold a certain share in the start-up, and once the latter are successful, they could be merged in the company.

The usage of chatbots have been steadily increasing with technological advancements and new entrants. The other major factors leading to the increase in use of chatbots are increased use of smart devices and better internet connectivity and need for the optimization of the healthcare system. However, there are few challenges which act as hindrance to the growth of the global chatbots in the healthcare market.