The Potential of Chatbots to Improve Mesothelioma Diagnostics and Patient Experience
Adding a touch of science in healthcare and improving patient experience can be a game changer, especially if it can get results, shorten wait time or streamline the process. Artificial intelligence is the latest craze on the market, and one application, in particular, could offer an innovative way of empowering patients and doctors alike. Chatbots are here with the promise of becoming competent assistants, diligent nurses and trustful companions. Even rare diseases like mesothelioma could benefit directly by asking developers to program these entities according to the specific needs of patients or doctors.
Chatbots for cancer
The advantage of chatbots is their ability to encourage people to communicate naturally and to give instant feedback. This interactive dimension completed by knowledge through machine learning could transform them into a reliable solution to fight the doctor shortage and to improve treatment options, aiding patients.
Mesothelioma is dangerous since it is rare but has common symptoms that even for experienced doctors are hard to detect in the early stages. It requires both an analysis of the patient’s history and consistent lab testing. A chatbot could mean a new approach since it can ask enough specific questions and track daily changes to detect warning signs and advise the patient to investigate further.
Diagnosis improvement
One task artificial intelligence is best at is pattern detection and recognition. Human doctors need years of training to be able to tell the difference between malign tumors, while a neural network can be trained in this skill in hours after repeated exposure to relevant pictures. Furthermore, each doctor’s skills are individual, and it is difficult to combine the knowledge of more doctors for a single case, a problem that a piece of software would not have. All the know-how of a network is easily transferable and mergeable into another one.
It is estimated that by 2022, cost savings due to chatbots will reach $8 billion for healthcare and banking, so they are not only scalable and easily accessible, but money savvy as well.
Stop Google diagnosis
The most important advancement by chatbot is to empower patients. By having access to a medical grade database in a very user-friendly environment — like a chat window or even through voice interface — people can make less self-diagnosing mistakes.
Currently, bulk symptoms are put into the search box, and results are not only alarming but most of the times fake and even prone to endanger the patient by advising them to take over the counter drugs. Chatting with a medical bot could more resemble a visit to the GP where specific questions are asked in the right order to derive a causality. Such an approach could help detect mesothelioma earlier and not mistake it for a common cold or pneumonia, a misdiagnosis also offered by physicians.
Learn more about side effects
Keeping in contact via a chat interface can also help advance medical research by creating an extensive database of side effects and interactions. When a patient experiences a side effect right after medication, if it is not severe, they will most likely forget about it until their next doctor’s visit. Such an example was discussed on Surviving Mesothelioma in relation to the drug antifolate pemetrexed (Alimta). This drug is the first and only drug approved by the FDA specifically to treat malignant mesothelioma, and unfortunately causes a skin reaction in some patients. By having a simple way to record these small inconveniences, doctors can have a more accurate image of the treatment.
Patient experience
Cancer patients face different struggles, depending on the state of their illness, their age and family situation. After they have received their mesothelioma diagnosis, they need to monitor the evolution of the disease and decide, together with their doctor, if the treatment is effective.
Daily diary
It is impractical to visit your doctor’s office daily just to have a brief conversation about your general state, but with the help of a chatbot, that interaction could take place naturally, without additional hassle. Even for older patients who are less tech-savvy, a voice-controlled chatbot could assume the responsibilities of a private nurse and take a few notes. This step is especially important for mesothelioma patients who have successfully completed their treatment and are under supervision to detect any possible recurrence.
Switching doctors
If you want to try a new treatment or you are forced to replace your doctor after changing your home address or your care plan, it is in the patient’s best interest to take all their history and provide the new doctor with all of the existing information. If a patient had been using a chatbot to diagnose and record their progress, all that information will be stored and even classified and adequately tagged, ready to access. Things like a drug list, the type, and dose of radiation and any surgery reports could be transferred simply by allowing your new care provider the credentials to the bot.
Emotional support
Although a bot is just a piece of software, since they were first introduced almost 50 years ago, people have a hard time treating them as heartless technology. This observation could help add a caring personality to a medical bot and make them act as a nurse, reminding patients to take their medication while adding some good advice along the way.
Risks and concerns
The most critical problem to be addressed is that chatbots will not replace trained medical staff, but should be regarded as trusted assistants, ready to offer immediate support until a doctor is available to take over the case.
Although through the development of machine learning capabilities these entities will become extensively knowledgeable, they need to be continuously checked for false positives and undetected cancer.
The next concern should address the privacy and security of the transmitted data. Such information is highly personal and sensitive, and the system should use high-end encryption techniques, to meet the standards set for medical data and social security numbers.
