Tech aims to overcome vaccine hesitancy and provide self-scheduled vaccinations, travel directions, and digital proof of vaccination.
With the arrival of COVID-19 vaccinations, comes a new twist in the saga of the pandemic. The World Health Organization lists "vaccine hesitancy" as one of the top 10 threats to world health.
Could chatbots help overcome some people's objections?
The founder of QliqSOFT, which recently announced a chatbot called Quincy, says that the company's innovation not only helps healthcare providers with COVID-19 vaccine distribution, but also helps educate recipients about the safety and benefits of the medication.
“The COVID-19 vaccines will only be effective if people take them,” says Krishna Kurapati, founder and chief executive officer of QliqSOFT. “This new chatbot allows healthcare organizations to automate education and follow-up to alleviate vaccine hesitancy, while also providing multiple touch points to remove hurdles and ensure follow-through.”
Chatbots are AI-driven conversational agents that can respond dynamically to input and responses from recipients of invitations to chat via a simple text interface. QliqSOFT can be branded and customized for each healthcare organization using it.
The chatbot provides Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-originated education about the vaccines to answer frequently asked questions posed by patients to the chatbot.
Quincy also allows patients to schedule their immunizations. This ability for patients to schedule their own appointments will lead to fewer no-shows, QliqSOFT says. Patients that schedule their own appointments are 94% more likely to show up, the company says.
In addition, the chatbot offers options on patients' mobile devices for transportation to and from vaccination locations, providing in-chat directions, including public transportation and ride-share options.
CPSI, a provider of healthcare solutions and services for community hospitals, their clinics and post-acute care facilities, announced it was making the QliqSOFT chatbot available in early 2021 for its customers.
The chatbot is also able to capture necessary consents and digital proof of vaccination. Such proof may be required for access to facilities, places of employment, and events in 2021. QliqSOFT does this by capturing documentation and images containing protected health information through an embedded HIPAA-compliant camera technology in the chatbot app.
Quincy is integrated into Epic's App Orchard set of application programming interfaces, which will help Epic customers get up and running within days, QliqSOFT says
Scott Mace is a contributing writer for HealthLeaders.