Tag: chatbots
Patient-Generated Health Data – A Powerful Tool To Enhance Healthcare
Remember a time when patients would queue up in line with a big dossier in hand, waiting for their time to be examined by the doctor? Lengthy queues, paper-heavy records to be maintained, time wasted as doctors reacquaint themselves with the patient’s entire history – no more of all of that. Today, a patient wants to be involved in his care and he doesn’t want to be waiting around wasting precious time. With innovative health technologies, patient-generated health data is making that possible by enabling patient-centered, citizen-engaging care.
Let us consider how improving patient care through technology is possible. We will also see how the use of information technology in healthcare is allowing the healthcare industry to deal with patients as valued customers, improving their experience. But, first of all, what is patient-generated health data?
Patient-Generated Health Data
Any valuable information a patient can garner about their health status is referred to as Patient-Generated Health Data [PGHD]. PGHD is much more than just a person’s health history with information on his symptoms, medication and treatment information. It also includes his biometric data, as well as information about his lifestyle choices. These records will provide a clearer picture of a patient’s actual health status, better than the patient can describe in his own words.
The use of information technology in healthcare is making it possible for healthcare providers to understand their patients better and in making better medical decisions. It also aids patients in receiving an increased understanding of their health condition. The importance of health information technology in healthcare today cannot be over-emphasized.
How Does The Use Of Information Technology In Healthcare Help Healthcare Organizations?
Patient-generated health data can improve the quality of patient care. When integrated into clinical care, patient-generated health data enhance shared decision making and patient engagement. The use of information technology in healthcare can provide an assessment of the patient’s symptoms and well-being, preferences and values, and goals for healthcare. Here are a few specific benefits of the use of IT in healthcare:
1. Improves nurse-patient relationship
Low health literacy can strain the nurse-patient relationship. When a patient comes to appointments armed with their health research, the nurse-patient relationship improves.
2. Clinical benefits
PGHD plays an important role in assessing a person’s health and monitoring treatment effects. It connects patients and healthcare providers during a care encounter. PGHD can be used to monitor a person’s overall health and allows healthcare professionals to detect potential health dangers.
3. High-risk patients
Keeping a track of PGHD helps providers identify and treat high-risk patients at the earliest. Leveraging PGHD proves extremely valuable in chronic and acute care.
4. Patient engagement
Patients have ownership over their data and control on how and when that data is shared with their care team. They are empowered to contribute to their care and can share insights. It improves communication and contributes to shared decision-making.
5. PGHD provides independence to seniors
PGHD can be used in assisted living to mitigate the risk of falls. It gives confidence to the elderly for independent living and it improves adherence to complex medication plans. PGHD also alerts healthcare providers when required, avoiding the need for expensive assisted living facilities and nursing homes.
Fingent Technologies worked with NovitaCare, an early-stage healthcare startup, in setting up an online platform to enable easy administration, streamlined workflow for many healthcare services and HIPPA compliance. Improving patient and caregiver interactions, eliminating waste, enhancing accountability, and raising the quality of care were the main accomplishments of this tool.
Related Reading: Read more about the case study here.
Innovative Health Technologies To Help The Patient
Innovations in health technologies go beyond just PGHD. It includes various devices and systems designed to streamline healthcare operations, lower the costs and enhance the quality of care. Among the most promising healthcare technologies are Artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality, chat-bots and so on. Let us consider a few.
1. Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence with machine learning is proving to be essential for healthcare organizations. It is capable of reducing the risk of preventable medical situations in three ways.
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- Reminders: It can provide automated reminders to help a patient, reminding him to take his medication within a certain time-frame.
- Identify and alert: It helps to identify potentially dangerous situations and triggers alerts for the medical staff making timely medical intervention possible.
- Personalized dosage: Dosage recommendations are made depending on each patient’s body chemistry while considering environmental factors.
2. Blockchain in Healthcare
Blockchain can create and maintain a transparent and tamper-proof transaction ledger. This technology could change the way huge healthcare sectors operate. Personal data collected in blockchain remains with the patient instead of being stored on servers, thus enhancing confidentiality.
3. Voice Search
According to research, 46% of Americans use voice-assistance on their mobile devices. The figures are not much different for the rest of the world. We can expect that soon many more would be inclined to search for health-related information using voice search. Since it is increasingly used, the healthcare industry is also making good use of voice search. This technology would be helpful to both patients and caregivers who try to locate hospitals or clinics either near their homes or offices.
4. Chatbots
Chatbots in healthcare provide various benefits. They assist with medication management, first-aid or in emergencies. Chatbots offer a personalized service to patients and caregivers.
5. Virtual Reality in Healthcare
Patients are often anxious about hospital stays and procedures. Virtual reality helps calm their nerves and improve the patient experience.
6. mHealth Apps
Mobile applications provide patients with control over the options available to him. These apps can assist in making an appointment, uploading medical history or even checking into a hospital for medical care. Mobile apps ease the load of the non-medical staff at hospitals and reduce the patient’s waiting period thus reducing operational costs considerably.
An online platform Encourage was developed to empower patients with information related to their healthcare and educational material about procedures and illnesses. The tool further helps doctors keep track of a patient’s progress, assign tasks, reminders and care plans for the patient. It also gives patients the ability to include people as their caretaker and manage their engagement with them and the doctors through a rewards system and more.
Related Reading: Read more about the case of simplifies patient care here.
What is the Future of PGHD?
With no signs of slowing down, it is estimated that in a couple of years AI is expected to grow annually at the rate of 48%. Other technologies along with mobile apps help in communicating with patients even after they leave the healthcare facility. With such promising technologies, patient-generated health data will surely benefit patients and caregivers and aid healthcare organizations to provide better care.
Yes, the partnership of healthcare organizations with technology is a match that brings out the best in each other. We can confidently look forward to this relationship growing and maturing in the days to come. To empower your healthcare organization with the budding technologies, get in touch with our experts now!
How to improve real estate sales with chatbots?
One of the biggest technology disruptions that have occurred in the world of marketing over the past couple of years has been Artificial Intelligence powered chatbots. The growth of machine learning and natural language processing capabilities have made chatbots more human than ever in terms of engaging with prospects. Studies have shown that by 2020 it is expected that 85% of all engagements that a customer has with a business will be through self-service options and chatbots and not a human point of contact. Just like with other business sectors, the real estate industry also needs to make note of this rising trend of AI conversational tools that are gaining affection from consumers worldwide. If you are part of the real estate sector and wondering how to drive more results with chatbots, then here are 5 ways to try:
Related Reading: Read on to find trending technologies that can accelerate your real estate business.
Automate your first point of contact
If you deal with rentals or sale of property or homes as a business, then a conversational chatbot can be deployed on your website to serve as the first point of contact for a prospective buyer who visits your site. No longer do you have to hire dedicated customer service representatives exclusively in shifts if you want to have a 24X7 live chat support on your website to help buyers make choices faster.
A conversational chatbot can easily handle multiple visitors simultaneously without forcing them to wait for a live agent to connect and handle their queries. This automation combined with instantaneous response will definitely reflect as lowered operational costs for your business as well as increased customer satisfaction via quicker responses.
Effective lead qualifying
Reports show that 63% of customers are likely to return to a website if it offers live chat support. So you definitely need to have an extensive chat support system for your internet presence. But then comes the downside. Not all who chat with your agents will be a prospective lead. Some people may just chat for information that necessarily doesn’t transform into a business deal. So is it worth investing a human agent to qualify all incoming chat queries?
It would be a big no! Your human agents need to be assigned to handle only important leads that have the potential to transform into a direct deal. The lead qualifying part can now be handled by conversational bots that can use a series of questions autonomously to gauge the interest level of a visitor. It can then qualify the visitor as a valuable lead or not by comparing their behavior to previous cases of lead interactions and thereby assign scores of lead maturity.
Leads with a higher score will have more chances of being converted into a deal and can be passed on to human agents for further communication. Those with lower scores can be continuously nurtured by the chatbot themselves by supplying them with more information about the property they required assistance. Thus, your human agents can be utilized for better high-level sales while an AI-powered chatbot can handle repetitive questionnaire and lead qualifying rounds efficiently.
Personalized selling
AI-powered Chatbots can be trained on a number of behavioral patterns of typical real estate customers to facilitate a more personalized and insightful conversation. By carefully asking a sequence of questions, the chatbot can drive potential buyers into booking a deal for a property without even the need for a human agent to take over.
The bot can study individual preferences of all visitors and offer personalized recommendations that are bound to strike a chord with their interests. For example, if a prospective buyer with an interest in shopping wants to rent or buy a house through a real estate portal, then a conversational bot can seek their preferences through smart questions and recommend them properties near to shopping destinations. Same goes for recommendations based on interests such as budget, number of rooms or bathrooms required, car parking facilities and much more.
Efficient follow-up
It may take more than a couple of engaging conversations to lure a prospective buyer into making a decision to invest in a property. Conversational chatbots can interview visitors, collect their contact information and offer them time to think about the prospects that were showcased. They could then automatically follow up with them by triggering emails requesting an appointment to view the property directly or take it to the next step which may involve a direct discussion with a human agent.
Either way, the chatbot can facilitate follow-ups much more efficiently and in a timely manner based on visitor preferences. It can also send email alerts to agents regarding upcoming visits by a prospective customer with their detailed history of conversation to help them convert the lead into a deal faster and with more profit. If the entire process of chat support and subsequent email follow-up was to be handled by human agents, then their chances of missing out on follow-up schedules and also higher chances of errors in data collection and information exchange.
Faster information discovery
If a human agent is deployed for chat support on your website, then he or she may need time to scour through the vast scathe of data available in your property database to recommend suggestions to a prospective customer. Add to this, the complexity of applying filters manually to find properties that suit the buyer’s interest will only make information discovery a lagging and slow experience for a visitor.
This time loss is a blow to engagement levels for a potential buyer and they could leave your website if there is too much delay in getting the information, they sought from a human chat support agent. A chatbot, on the other hand, is connected to your property database and can instantly extract all valid property features based on customer interests. They can provide information on the chat window or upon instructions from visitors, can email it to them and can even book an appointment with a local agent to arrange a visit to selected properties physically for the buyer.
Digital innovations such as an AI-powered chatbot has the potential to transform engagements between buyers and real estate businesses considerably. As you have witnessed the top 5 scenarios where chatbots can turn out to be more efficient representatives of your property business, the remaining aspect is selecting the most efficient technology to build your own custom real estate chatbot.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence are highly complex in terms of technology development and would require advanced levels of technical advisory and development support to enable the best for your business. This is where a technology partner like Fingent can be your saving grace.
Related Reading: Check out how Fingent created an integrated software solution to tackle multiple real estate challenges.
Our consultants can help you build the most intelligent AI-powered chatbot to help improve your online property sales efficiencies. Get in touch with us to explore world-class digital solutions that the best players in the real estate sector are continuously investing to grow their business.
6 Chatbot Security Practices You Need To Implement
According to a survey by Oracle, regarding the benefits of using chatbots for their consumer-facing products, which included responses from 800 decision-makers, including chief marketing officers, chief strategy officers, senior marketers, and senior sales executives from France, the Netherlands, South Africa, and the UK, it was found out that “80 percent of companies wanted to have some type of chatbots implemented by 2020!
It is also forecasted that 90% of bank-related interactions will be automated by 2022. Moreover, 80% of businesses will have chatbot automation implemented by 2020. Also, 47% of consumers would buy items from a chatbot when 28% of top-performing companies are already using AI for marketing! With chatbots turning into the trend, it is vital to implement chatbot security measures.
A Back Door Open To Hackers
Chatbots are nowadays mostly used in industries such as retail, banking, financial services, and travel that handles very crucial data such as credit/debit cards, SSN, bank accounts, and other Sensitive PII (Personally identifiable information).
The aggregation of such data is crucial for the chatbot to perform. Thus, it is required that chatbots are not vulnerable to be exploited by any hackers.
A recently released report from MIT Technology Review and Genesys showed that 90% of companies are already using AI strategies to increase revenue. The research also found that on average, between 25% and 50% of all customer queries can be solved through automated techniques. This has made it easier than before to handle complex tasks.
Related Reading: Read on to know more about the top AI trends of 2019.
The HTTPS Protocol For Security Of Chatbots
HTTPS protocol is the basic and default setting required for a good security system. The data that is being transferred over the HTTP via encrypted connections are secured by Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
Related Reading: Check out how Fingent helped create an enhanced and engaging learning experience through chatbots.
Types of Security Issues
Security Issues fall into two main categories:
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Threats
Threats are usually defined as different methods by which a system can be negotiated or compromised. Threats can include incidents such as Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information Disclosure, Denial of Service, Elevation of Privileges, and many other threats.
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Vulnerabilities
Vulnerabilities are defined as methods that a system is compromised and cannot be identified and solved correctly and on time. A system becomes open to attack when it has poor coding, lax security, or because of human errors. The most effective way to solve the issues of a possible vulnerability is to implement SDL (Security Development Lifecycle) activities into the development and deployment methods.
As per the study by the Ponemon Institute, In 2017, the average total cost of a successful cyber-attack was over $5 million, or $301 per employee!
Here are 6 chatbot security issues that you need to consider right away:
1. Encryption
Data while transit can also be misused. There exist different protocols that provide encryption, while addressing these problems of misuse and tampering.
According to article 32 (a) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), “it is specifically required that companies take measures to de-identify and encrypt personal data. So, chatbots have access only to encrypted channels and communicate through those”.
For instance, Facebook Messenger introduced the new feature called “Secret Conversations” that enabled end-to-end encryption based on Signal Protocol.
2. Authentication and Authorization
Authentication is performed when the user needs to verify their identity. This is often used for bank chatbots.
Generated authentication tokens verify data that are requested through a chatbot. On completing the verification of the user’s identity, the Application produces a secure authentication token, along with the request.
Another step of security measures is an authentication timeout. The token generated is used for only a certain amount of time, after which the application has to process a new one.
Two-way verification is another process where the user is asked to authorize their email address or to receive a code via SMS. This is a crucial process which is necessary to verify that the user of that account is the real user that is using the chatbot.
3. Self-destructing Messages
When Sensitive PII (Personally identifiable information) is being transferred, the message with this data is deleted after a definite period of time.
Personally identifiable information (PII) is any data which can be used to identify a particular person. It includes records such as a person’s medical, educational, financial and employment information. Examples of data elements that can identify and locate an individual include their name, fingerprints or other biometric (including genetic) data, email address, telephone number or even their social security number.
This kind of security measure is crucial when working with banking and other financial chatbots.
4. Personal Scan
When working with personal data, it is necessary to take security precautions and measures.
Apple was the first company that added finger authentication to their iPhones. This technology is now being used widely to verify an individual’s identity. This is performed when initiating a transaction or when you want to access your bank account using a chatbot that a personal scan is required.
5. Data Storage
Chatbots are effective because they retrieve and store information from users.
For instance, if you have a chatbot that performs online payments, this can mean that your clients are providing their financial information to a chatbot.
The best solution in this situation is to store such information in a secure state for a required amount of time and to discard these data later on.
Some other concerns are the following:
- Biometric authentication: Iris scans and fingerprint scans are popular and robust.
- User ID: User IDs involve processing secure login credentials.
- Authentication Timeouts: A ‘ticking clock’ for correct authentication input. This prevents giving hackers an opportunity to guess more passwords.
- Other strategies could include 2FA, behavior analytics, and kudos to the ever-evolving AI trends.
6. Tackling Human Causes
The one and only other factor or cause that cannot be altered is the human factor. With commercial applications in specific, that chatbot security and end-user technique have to be resolved. This will ensure the chatbots from being vulnerable to threats.
Related Reading: Find how artificial intelligence can drive business value.
To know more about secure bot building, get in touch with our IT consultants today!