With rapid advancements in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning, it is quickly affecting the healthcare industry as well. One of the ways AI algorithms have adapted for the industry is through chatbots, or programs coded to carry out a textual conversation with the user using context cues and pre-set responses. Chatbots have found a wide user base across all sorts of industries thanks to their handy and effective ability to automate tasks and save time for both the service’s user and provider, and the healthcare industry is no different.

Different aspects of the healthcare industry call for different kinds of chatbots, but their ultimate goal is the same: providing a better quality of healthcare. With that as our guiding beacon, let us take a look at 10 healthcare chatbots available today.

SmartBot360

SmartBot360 is the most interesting offering amongst all the ones on this list for it has a very future-forward holistic approach towards revolutionizing healthcare. An enterprise-centric offering by disposition, SmartBot360 is a healthcare marketing and patient engagement chatbot aimed at healthcare service providers. SmartBot360 provides tailored bots that engage the patient and ask them about their symptoms, conditions, medical history amongst all pertinent information to provide an initial diagnosis and connect the user with the medical professional in question to share that information with the registered practitioner (made possible thanks to SmartBot360’s HIPAA compliance) to schedule an appointment if deemed necessary. SmartBot360 aims to automate repetitive tasks to free up medical professionals so they can focus on providing a better quality of healthcare to the patients, while at the same time, offer instant support to website visitors.

SmartBot360 takes a far-reaching approach where its offerings benefit everyone involved in the healthcare value delivery funnel at every stage.

Your.MD

Your.MD is one of the world’s most popular platforms to search for the right medical health service provider and was awarded the prestigious UNESCO/Netexplo “innovations that can improve society” In 2017. Not only is the service an excellent source for finding the right pharmacy, doctor or mental health professional for one, but also offers actionable health information backed by an extensively researched and curated repository of healthcare-related information. Your.MD’s one of most used features is its artificially intelligent symptom checker that indexes the user’s entered information against its database and offers possible conditions with reasonable accuracy. Your.MD’s cross-platform accessibility makes it an instantly available option for all.

Babylon Health

Babylon Health is a subscription-based healthcare service provider leveraging the power of artificially intelligent chatbots to combine them with a digital version of traditional healthcare solutions to deliver the best of both worlds and provide a stunning showcase for a digital future. Upon downloading the app, the user provides all necessary information that the app’s artificially intelligent models process and drives the patient towards a consultation with the in-built symptom checker. After, the user is provided with a diagnostic report and the option to engage in a video-based consultation with a practitioner to take the necessary next steps as required. Babylon’s high potential hybrid approach to providing healthcare solutions has led even the United Kingdom’s National Health Service to collaborate with Babylon, with digital consultations being offered to the former’s patients in select cities with more being added to the list.

Woebot

Woebot is a highly unique chatbot in the sense that it aims to address one of the most common yet least addressed mental health issues today: depression. Developed on the guiding principles of clinical psychology and using the principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Woebot uses context cues from the user’s inputs to deliver responses with the methodology used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The genesis of Woebot came from an observed discomfort in most patients while trying to talk to a licensed mental health professional or therapist on account of the implicit connotations the patients had. Woebot alleviates that aspect of therapy while using artificial intelligence to analyze the patient’s personality and mood and then deliver an actionable recommendation the way a traditional mental health professional would.

Florence

The chatbot Florence has seen its usage increase widely since its launch and it’s not hard to see why – named after the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale, the chatbot is the digital equivalent of a nurse tending to a patient during their hospital stay.

Available through Facebook Messenger, Kik or Skype, the chatbot acquires required information such as prevalent medical conditions, any medications being taken (along with their timings, dosages etc.), and more from the user. It will then process that information and appropriately remind the user to take the medicines at the scheduled time, along with instructions on what to do if that time is missed. In addition to the above, Florence also goes the extra mile and reminds users to log their body weight, menstrual periods, moods etc. to process and analyze over a period, so that information can be provided when required. As a final touch, Florence also connects users to doctors and pharmacies nearby by helping them find them and their registered contact details out.

Sensely

Sensely’s offering, Molly, offers the service of using a patient’s entered information to match it with its information repository to provide a suitable diagnosis. However, where Molly differs is that it processes both text and speech as suitable communication. A robust speech recognition feature is baked into the chatbot to process speech in a diction agnostic manner and responds in a suitable manner. To further empower its users, Sensely offers its users the ability to share photos as well as videos. The service has a unique color-based triage system where Sensely will recommend self-care in cases deemed not severe enough to require medical intervention, but at the same time will suggest getting a doctor’s help along with detailed directions in case the situation is indeed severe enough.

OneRemission

OneRemission is the second chatbot featured on this list that caters its offerings to cancer-stricken users. As with CancerChatbot, the primary aim of the chatbot is to ease the lives of its users by providing them with relevant, curated information about their afflictions. The specialty of the app is that it is oriented towards patients in the recovery phase and aims to serve as a substitute to frequent need of a doctor for the day to day requirements of their recovery. The app provides an extensively researched selection of diets, exercises and post-cancer practices and the app’s repository of information serves as a handy benchmarking tool as well, should the user want to check the safety of a product. The crowning glory of the app is the offering of an on-call oncologist 24 hours a day 7 days a week for its users should a need for a consultation arise.

YouPer

YouPer differentiates itself from the other chatbots on this list in 3 distinct ways. Firstly, it is a more technology-driven chatbot than the others in the sense that it has a greater “tech focus” over a wellness focus. Be that as it may, YouPer offers astoundingly detailed analytical data that is tracked and maintained for greater analysis later. Thirdly, YouPer has an exclusive focus on emotional health and the app offered has robust built-in features that cater to the user by way of personalized meditations, and an ability to track mood and monitor emotional health over a long period. YouPer’s focus on personalization continues to manifest through the advanced psychological methods its artificial intelligence uses to engage in communication with the users and furthermore, as more of the app is used it learns the usage pattern and fine-tunes its experience to fit the user’s needs.

Buoy Health

Data trends across the world have shown that with more smartphones in more hands, people are referring increasingly to Google searches as a way of self-diagnosing their symptoms. While convenient, the pitfalls of that approach include the fact that not all data available on the internet is entirely accurate, and that human error may very well lead to a wrong diagnosis. The Buoy healthcare chatbot is designed to address these very pitfalls.

Developed after extensive research through Harvard Innovation Laboratory with its algorithm trained on thousands of medical papers and millions of patient conditions, Buoy’s artificially intelligent virtual assistant makes note of patient conditions and responds to them, not unlike a real doctor! With its advanced artificial intelligence trained on a substantial medical base, Buoy is a safe and reliable alternative to Googling one’s symptoms.

CancerChatbot

CancerChatbot is unique from other chatbots in the sense that unlike most others which are a standalone application or web-based tool, CancerChatbot is delivered through Facebook Messenger. As the name suggests, CancerChatbot is intended by its developed CSource to serve as a virtual assistant chatbot where patients can seek whatever information they require through a conversation. The chatbots unique value proposition is that it aims to make the process of gathering information about cancer and its related aspects easier and more structured for the user as opposed to digging through mountains of discordant information on the internet. Another unique proposition is in that the chatbot’s repository of information is sourced through resources supplied by cancer patients, their friends and their families to make the whole thing more tailored and intimate.

As this list makes it abundantly clear, there are a wide variety of chatbots available today catering to different sectors in the healthcare industry. While this list compiles the top 10 chatbots today, there are countless more around and countless more in development that has the potential to deeply impact how we perceive healthcare itself. With new advancements in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning advancing every day, the healthcare industry is being affected as well.