What You Should Know:
– Jefferson Healthcare deploys LifeLink’s new AI-powered COVID-19 chatbot – a “digital front door” for Jefferson Health patients seeking info or treatment for the virus.
– Deployed in just days, the conversational COVID-19 chatbot has unlimited capacity to pre-screen, share best protocols and even schedule priority appointments across the Jefferson Health Network
Jefferson Health, a leading academic health system in Pennsylvania and New Jersey has deployed LifeLink’s conversational chatbot solution to serve as the “Coronavirus digital front door” for Jefferson Health patients seeking information or treatment for COVID-19. Deployed in just days, AI-powered COVID-19 chatbot allows Jefferson clinical teams to remotely screen and prioritize cases without risk of exposure, provides massive scale in frontline response capabilities, and optimizes care utilization across the Jefferson network. In addition, the bot also digitizes the clinical intake process to streamline appointment scheduling for COVID-19 testing.
“We must find ways to engage a high volume of patients that are coming to us for help,” said Neil Gomes, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer at Jefferson Health. “LifeLink chatbots have already proven to be effective for us at increasing digital appointment requests.”
COVID-19 Chatbot: How It Works
The conversational interface uses simple, interactive messaging to collect patient information—processes that were previously done via time-consuming phone calls or in-person interactions. Designed to integrate to EMR, CRM, or other back-office scheduling systems, the LifeLink-powered chatbot automates three key workflows:
1. Conducts a risk assessment based on patient symptoms and exposure profile
2. Connects screened patients with recommended care pathways and action steps
3. Automates the clinical intake process for patients who need to schedule appointments
LifeLink’s conversational platform is designed for rapid configuration and scale in just a matter of days. The COVID-19 solution relies on several existing, proven workflow modules that were optimized to handle patient risk assessment and intake across a range of demographic and care scenarios.
“Our priority is to make sure our community is empowered to make decisions about their health, and the chatbot is another way we have expanded our Telemedicine capabilities. In every way we can, and using any technology we can leverage, we are going to be here for our community with accurate information about COVID-19,” states Efrat Kean, Clinical Instructor of Emergency Medicine at Jefferson Health.
Availability for Jefferson Health Patients
The bot is live on the Jefferson Health appointments website (http://appointments.jefferson.edu/) and available for any website visitor to use. Jefferson recommends all patients use the chatbot before calling or visiting one of its facilities.
