Bots are available outside of business hours (AI part 5)

September 28, 2023

Source: Graham et al, JAMA Network Open September 13, 2023 LINK

Many patients complain that their clinicians are only available during business hours, when they are least able to go to clinical appointments. That’s a problem for employers, too. Many employees have to take a half day off whenever they have a medical appointment, and this time away from work interferes with productivity.

Bots don’t need to abide by business hours.

Researchers published data in JAMA Network Open this week that demonstrated that most of the use of an AI-powered text message based wellbeing program was during non-business hours. They reviewed time sequences for almost 80,000 employees who had over 1.4 million coaching sessions. They found that sessions averaged between 4-5 minutes and almost 2/3 were outside of business hours.

This is good news for employers; employees were not using the chatbot during the workday. AI can increase our ability to deliver coaching, counseling, and even basic medical care at times that are most convenient for members.

Implications for employers:

-        AI-based bots could provide after-hour access to members seeking information on their medical condition or coaching.

-        We’ll need to continue to monitor AI applications to be sure that they are not providing inaccurate information or introducing bias into their responses.

That’s my September, 2023 drive through Artificial Intelligence. We’ll learn much more in the coming months and years, and I suspect AI will substantially change the delivery and administration of medical care over the next decade.

Tomorrow - something that has nothing to do with AI!

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