Supporting Patients Digitally during Difficult Times using Artificial Inteligence

Finding Reliable Health Information and Support

It’s been a year where we received unprecedented levels of health information on how we can protect ourselves and others from infectious disease. Distributing these messages has been front and centre of all media – newspaper, social and television reports, with this profile it was expected that these steps could be easily adopted. Whilst some advice has been simple and we can include in our everyday routine other information has been less straight forward and resulted in mixed levels of adoption.

The pandemic has also demonstrated a wider necessity for care as we see people who may not have caught the disease but are anxious of becoming ill and cautious of others who could pass it on. It is recognised Covid-19 is having impacts on mental health[i][ii] and patient’s reluctance to attend medical facilities for other conditions is leaving many diseases undiagnosed. When patients are afraid to leave their homes, it is important the best information is brought to them from a trusted source through an intuitive interface that provides reassurance.

This should be available for all diseases where patients are dependent on their health professionals for information, who with limited availability do their best to respond. When patients cannot get answers, they are likely to conduct their own research often on the internet from resources that may not always be reliable and carry risk. There is an opportunity to help all patients by implementing Artificial Intelligence solutions as a first point of contact, supported by medical professionals, treatment specialists and the health care community.

Benefits of helping patients through Artificial Intelligence

In the current circumstances there are many opportunities where effective AI and digital interfaces can make a difference to patient’s lives:

· Provides approved content 24/7 on their disease, treatment, available support and introduces them to community networks in their area

· Available for use in patient’s own home and can be shared easily with family, friends and carers who can also be affected by the impact of the condition.

· Allows the monitoring of patient’s questions so that content can be added/refined and over time AI will start to predict and present the best content for patients

· With trusted content it avoids patients trawling the internet and gathering content that misinforms and can lead to dangerous interpretation and actions. The data can be structured and approved to ensure it does not cross the line into clinical advice.

· Using conversational AI patients can be guided to the best answer and their best course of action based on the information they provide

· Complements the service patients receive from their doctor and reduces patient’s need to contact medical professionals

· Shares video and imagery to explain difficult content such as 'how to inject yourself' or the experiences of others with the same condition

· Can introduce alerts and alarms to take and apply treatments

· Increasing patient’s knowledge empowers them, they can review information many times and ask questions that really helps them understand the condition and treatment

Layers of Information patients want to know

The relationship and the interaction of a doctor and patient provides specific medical guidance related to the individual, recognising their age, weight, gender, underlying conditions and a number of possible contributing factors. In a consultation there can be a lot of information for a patient to absorb and they may not feel comfortable asking lots of questions when they need time to think things through and find out more later. This is particularly true for complex or rare conditions where there can be multiple layers of information patients will want to know.

Having access to a digital interface always available provides patients with layers of support depending on where they are in their treatment journey. Bringing these together will provide a robust knowledge base of resources for patients and carers affected by the disease to access with structured content that is easy to find.

This information can also help patient’s interaction with others, such as:

· Preparing for appointments what to expect and what to bring

· Keeping a diary of events can be really valuable in discussions with medical teams

· Communicating with others about the disease

Responsibility for Creating and Maintaining Knowledge

Supporting patients in this way is a role to be considered by medical professionals, treatment companies, insurance organisations and national bodies, each will benefit through:

· Reduced demand on doctors and nurses and accelerated return to health

· Increased patient autonomy and confidence to support themselves

· Informed patients are better prepared for appointments and treatments

· Promotes treatments through their correct use and increases effectiveness

· Patients awareness of the effects of the disease and treatments

· Improved overall health of the nation and reduced transmission of infectious disease

· Reassurance - avoiding anxiety and consequential impact on mental health

Digital Patient Support Programmes

The pandemic has forced patients and medical practitioners to adopt digital capabilities and in just a few months there have been many positive learnings and these are still emerging. Existing patient websites with good design and informed content do not provide the targeted information that patients now expect and there is an opportunity that by proactive planning of digital deployments significant benefits can be realised for all actors in the healthcare ecosystem.

These digital capabilities can be deployed at speed and through agile refinement of real time content will rapidly become valuable assets in supporting patients and health care professionals. This is an opportunity to transform patient support programmes, bringing interactive insight into the patient’s home at a time that suits them when dealing with their condition.

Finding the Right Digital Solutions for Patient Support

Shaping and guiding this process and translating the AI solutions into value adding capabilities can be challenging. Having the right consultancy partner will help you by:

· Understanding the full patient experience and working with clinical, operational and compliance teams to define what patients want to know

· Based on the experience of the teams and behavioural analysis identify areas where patients will need the most help and define the best outcome

· Define a digital solution that best supports all stakeholders and can be implemented easily without development and managed by operational teams who best understand patients

· Create content to support the patient’s interaction – ln most cases it is already there and just needs some re configuration

· Run a proof of concept that demonstrates the power of AI and the benefits that can be realised, communicate widely to maximise benefits.

· Analyse the patient’s interactions with a digital solution and the data created to refine/add content, develop new features and identify areas for further opportunity of benefits.

[ii] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30797-0/fulltext