In the near future, you will probably interact first with your healthcare providers via a chatbot, with some questions handled entirely by them, according to new research.

AI-powered chatbots will soon become the first responders for engagements with healthcare providers, as the number of chatbot interactions exceeds 2.8 billion annually by 2023, according to new findings from Juniper Research.

This is up from an estimated 21 million in 2018, an average annual growth of 167 percent. In part, the movement toward using chatbots as a first line interaction, Juniper says, is due a shortage of healthcare providers to handle questions from aging populations.

Why adoption of chatbots will ramp up

The new research, Digital Health: Disruptor Analysis, Country Readiness & Technology Forecasts 2018-2023, found that the adoption of chatbots will ramp up due to:.

  • Citizens becoming more comfortable using chatbots to discuss their healthcare requirements.
  • Chatbots becoming an important component of healthcare providers’ customer experience strategies.
  • Shortages of medical practitioners to support ageing populations; for example, the German government expects that it will need 3 million more nurses by 2060.
  • Increased sophistication of conversational AI platforms leading to a greater percentage of enquiries being completed entirely via chatbots; freeing up the medical staff time and saving countries’ healthcare systems around $3.7 billion by 2023.

Juniper says “The research found that the first priority for healthcare providers will be to ensure that the information collected is transferred to a person’s medical record and other applications, such as appointment scheduling or for those for dispensing prescriptions.”

Providers of medical records and line of business applications, Juniper notes, will need to make their existing systems interoperable with chatbot providers.

Research author Michael Larner explained in a statment:

“Chatbots have the potential to transform the way in which patients engage with their healthcare systems and go some way to take the pressure off overstretched staff. But if deployments are not backed up by investment in record keeping, then financial and time savings will evaporate”.