Chatbots for Pre-diagnosis of Heart Diseases and Physician Knowledge Assessment

Client

Merck is the world’s oldest pharmaceutical, chemical, and biological company. It is engaged in the production of high-tech materials, biopharmaceuticals, and life sciences.

Context

Nearly 50% of the world’s adult population suffers from high blood pressure, yet every fourth individual among them is unaware of their elevated heart rate, which can gradually lead to aneurysms, angina, heart attacks, strokes, and other conditions.

To enhance medical literacy and motivate people to undergo timely screenings, the pharmaceutical company Merck has developed the educational platform “I Know Hypertension.” On this platform, they have compiled valuable resources about arterial hypertension.

Task

Develop a chatbot for visitors of the I Know Hypertension portal that assists them in undergoing pre-diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases and provides information about the risks of high blood pressure.

Launch an educational chatbot for medical professionals that assesses their knowledge about cardiovascular diseases and offers recommendations for prescribing therapy to patients with arterial hypertension.

Solution

Patient Chatbot

The operation of the chatbot on the I Know Hypertension website is akin to the process of collecting medical history during a patient’s initial visit to a doctor.

With the assistance of Merck’s specialists, we have designed a script for the bot that makes it incredibly easy for patients to respond to questions. Throughout this process, our aim was to gather comprehensive pre-diagnostic information and provide well-balanced responses regarding potential risks.

During the script development, special attention was given to the chatbot’s linguistic personality. Given that the questionnaire is quite extensive and takes no less than five minutes to complete, our goal was to maintain user engagement.

Hence, the chatbot, named Max, incorporates humor, shares amusing GIFs, and skillfully comments on users’ answers.

Doctor Chatbot

For healthcare professionals, we have developed a website with a test that cardiologists need to complete by answering questions related to the process of examining patients for arterial hypertension.

Based on the test results, the bot provides recommendations for prescribing the necessary therapy.

Crucially, all the test materials and questions have been crafted not only with the involvement of Merck specialists but also reference authoritative research in the field of cardiology.