Chatbot for Patient Triage
Challenge
Vet techs spend valuable time on triage, asking a series of questions to assess the severity of each patientʼs health concerns upon entering the Emergency Room.
A technicianʼs time would be better spent caring for patients.
This clinic performed little analysis and gathered minimal data related to ER traffic, thus failing to assess patterns of patientsʼ presenting problems.
Solution
Designed and built a chatbot to interact with patients arriving to the Emergency Room, asking a series of questions and assessing the triage priority.
Used NLP/NLU functionalities to understand free-text responses by the user and determine the relevant presenting problem.
Integrated the chatbot with a mobile app so users can answer questions without being in the hospital, which was particularly necessary under COVID-19 circumstances.
Results
Reduced triage costs by saving ~20 minutes of time per consult by vet technicians.
Collected data about patient traffic, common issues, and more that were used in future projects to improve the patient journey.
Streamlined the process of information gathering in the ER by integrating the tool with the Emergency Medical Records system.