The chatbot is one of the most impactful technology trends reshaping business operations. These helpful little tools have proven to bring value to numerous industries, particularly the healthcare industry. The function of a chatbot is to provide website visitors with helpful information and guidance without needing to speak to a live agent. However, a chatbot can still connect a visitor to an agent, if needed. With so much flexibility, how can you benefit from leveraging a healthcare chatbot for your needs?
Let's dive deep into the healthcare chatbots market to learn how they are revolutionizing patient access, patient experience and care team efficiencies for healthcare organizations.
What are the Benefits of Using a Healthcare Chatbot?
With the healthcare industry strained from an unprecedented lack of workers and the impact of the pandemic, digital tools offer some breathing room.
Healthcare chatbots make life easier for everyone involved. Let’s break down these benefits below:
Cutting Down Long Wait Times
Long wait times directly correlate to lower satisfaction in several industries including healthcare. With chatbots, patients can receive helpful information by typing in details about their symptoms and what they’re experiencing or simple questions. This solution helps reduce the need for long handling and wait times.
Reduce Strain on Healthcare Workers
Healthcare workers are facing mounting challenges like higher case loads, burnout, and excessive administrative burdens. Thanks to chatbots, they can save time and energy and focus more on in-depth appointments, urgent patient cases, or complex queries.
Improve Accessibility for All
Some patients are unable to meet with a provider due to logistical challenges such as scheduling conflicts and distance. Healthcare chatbots give them the ability to quickly get answers to their questions, conveniently schedule or reschedule appointments and, ensure their healthcare needs are timely met. This type of convenience ensures a positive customer service experience.
Related: Did you know patient care is similar to Tinder these days? Read this guide to learn how!
Encourage Accurate Medical Information
A common mistake that patients make is going straight to Google, forums, and social media for health-related questions and concerns. Unfortunately, much of the information they find can come from non clinical sources. Chatbots are able to answer questions, provide clinically-validated guidance and connect healthcare customers with the appropriate providers.
Medical misinformation is an issue that makes it difficult for providers to provide quality care.You want your patients to use your blog or clinically-intelligent healthcare chatbot for medical information, not Dr. Google!
Are you ready to establish a clinical chatbot for your healthcare organization? Contact us for a demo.
Creating More Options for Virtual Care
Telehealth is an increasingly vital component of successful healthcare models. Thanks to practical tools like webcams and text messaging, more patients than ever can receive care from any location that’s most convenient.
Chatbots are another aspect of virtual care you can add to your roster. The more options you give to your patients, the happier everyone will be.
Related: How are we pushing the boundaries of virtual care? Read our article here.
Improve Brand Loyalty
Your brand identity is a key component of your patients’ experience. The more pleasant and convenient you can make every interaction, the more you’re building brand loyalty. You want each patient to walk away feeling content and satisfied with their care. Chatbots give your business the ability to sharpen its image as a competent resource of medical excellence.
How Big is the Chatbot Market?
The chatbot market has boomed over the past several years. According to recent statistics, this market exceeded $100 million in 2022. By the time 2027 rolls around, the chatbot market revenue will more than triple in size.
This market has several reasons for its surge in popularity. A major reason is the rise in consumer demand, as most people prefer the efficiency and convenience that comes with this technology. Virtual agents typically require more time and money for the same result. Businesses are seeking ways to better allocate live personnel resources in an attempt to remain sustainable.
The Future of the Healthcare Chatbot Market
The future of the healthcare chatbot market is bright. As healthcare innovations continue to surge, chatbots will slot into a much-needed niche.
They are ripe for all sorts of exciting improvements. The goal of these tools is to ensure patients receive the most accurate, speedy, and reliable assistance. Similarly, healthcare workers need more flexibility with their tight workloads.
Recent innovations aimed at chatbots these days involve the following details:
- Improved sentiment analysis
- Reduced incidents of misunderstanding
- Expanded database of information
- Advanced natural language processing (NLP)
Incorporating Chatbots into Your Practice
Have you considered incorporating chatbots into your practice? Your first step is to ask how it can improve your patients’ experience and your business value.
We provide clinically intelligent AI chatbots to healthcare businesses, empowering your patients to gain relevant knowledge every time they visit your site. We slice into administrative burdens and increase efficiency through provider-patient interactions. If you’ve noticed a few hiccups in your business operations, our Smart Care Routing™ chatbot will give you a much-needed boost.
Related: What roles do APPs play in telemedicine these days? Read our thoughts on the matter here.
Conclusion
Chatbots in the healthcare field are quickly becoming one of the biggest medical innovations of the century. Combining convenience with cutting-edge, clinical technology, they are here to stay.
Our chatbot market overview concludes that these AI technologies will continue to grow over the next few years. The greatest concerns chatbots address are long wait and handling times, medical misinformation, and provider burnout. New enhancements, like improved sentiment analysis and greater databases of information will come out over the next few years.
Next time you’re considering a shift to enhance business operations, consider AI chat technology. You’ll be amazed at how much smoother your organization will run with a chatbot in your toolbox.
