A lot of healthcare is actually highly repetitive.
If you think about it, by definition, a safe procedure is where the outcomes are highly predictable. Why then are healthcare costs rising, and doctors struggling to meet demand?
One reason is because these highly stereotyped, repetitive tasks are still being performed by humans - doctors, nurses, specialists. Other professional industries such as law and banking have seen their most burnout-inducing, routine tasks automated by software. Yet until now, the clinical conversation remains the bastion of the human clinician. I would argue this represents a bottleneck in scaling digital care pathways.
Introducing Dora.
What if we could use some of the most cutting edge technologies to replace routine conversations with patients?
Dora is an AI-powered conversational assistant that is able to have phone conversations with patients . "Yet another app?" you may think. What is unique about Dora, is that it calls patients through a simple phone call. There's no training, app download or a specific device. Patients simply pick up the phone, and have a conversation, just like they would to a doctor or a nurse.
What's cool about Ufonia's Dora platform, is that it's taking sophisticated AI & natural-language processing technologies, but delivering them through an accessible medium. This is especially important for older, less digitally able patients who are a majority of healthcare users.
Does it work?
Over 180 patients had an autonomous Dora call to follow up after their cataract surgery at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust. The study showed a 97% accuracy in symptom assessment (e.g. questions like "is your eye red?") and broadly positive patient acceptability.
But two study findings really stood out:
- The average age of participants was 76.
- These participants gave Dora a median net-promoter score (NPS) of 9 out of 10.*
I challenge you to find another digital health where such an elderly group was able to engage so well with a novel technology with no training.
Unlocking new models of care.
The fundamental insight is that in every care pathway, there will be highly stereotyped activities that can now be automated by applying new technologies. Dora is just one example of this.
This really unlocks a whole new way of thinking about delivering care. For example, you start to realise that the nature of doctor "appointments" is really a result of labor constraints, and not dictated by patient needs.
Automated models of care liberate us from such constraints. You start to think about the ability to check-in on your patients at times where you ordinarily wouldn't be working. Patients can all be called simultaneously, and only those that really need it can be called back or brought in for a review.
I don't think clinicians can ever be fully replaced, but maybe it's time we get out of our own way, and think about how automation can help us scale our impact, and focus on the patient's that need us most.
*A net promoter score asks on a scale of 1 to 10 how much you would recommend the service to a friend.