Curious thing, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based conversational agent for COVID-19 patient management
Josephine Sau Fan Chow
A B C D E * , Victoria Blight A , Marian Brown A , Vanessa Glynn A , Brian Lane A , Amanda Larkin A D , Sonia Marshall A , Prue Matthews A , Mick Rowles A and Bradley Warner A
A South Western Sydney Local Health District, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
B Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research, Liverpool, NSW, Australia.
C University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
D University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
E Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Australian Journal of Primary Health 29(4) 312-318 https://doi.org/10.1071/PY22045
Submitted: 7 March 2022 Accepted: 4 January 2023 Published: 23 January 2023
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of La Trobe University. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY)
Abstract
There are no clear guidelines or validated models for artificial intelligence (AI)-based approaches in the monitoring of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients who were isolated in the community, in order to identify early deterioration of their health symptoms. Developed in partnership with Curious Thing (CT), a Sydney-based AI conversational technology, a new care robot technology was introduced in South Western Sydney (SWS) in September 2021 to manage the large numbers of low-to-medium risk patients with a COVID-19 diagnosis and who were isolating at home. The CT interface made contact with patients via their mobile phone, following a locally produced script to obtain information recording physical condition, wellness and support. The care robot has engaged over 6323 patients between 2 September to 14 December 2021. The AI-assisted phone calls effectively identified the patients requiring further support, saved clinician time by monitoring less ailing patients remotely, and enabled them to spend more time on critically ill patients, thus ensuring that service and supply resources could be directed to those at greatest need. Engagement strategies had ensured stakeholders support of this technology to meet clinical and welfare needs of the identified patient group. Feedback from both the patients and healthcare staff was positive and had informed the ongoing formulation of a more patient-centred model of virtual care.
Keywords: artificial intelligence, care robot, community health, conversational agent, COVID-19, model of care, patient-centred care, virtual care.
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