Home Dialysis Chatbot Triage for Nurse Workflow Interruptions
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Solution Overview
Problem
Home dialysis patients face challenges with unplanned interactions that disrupt nurses' workflows and require significant time, as they often lack immediate medical support, leading to inefficient clinical management.
Innovation Solution
A virtual assistant/chatbot system that provides a patient-facing interface for inquiries, utilizing medical device data and electronic medical records to automate triage, prioritize requests, and route them to appropriate communication channels, reducing direct nurse interactions for non-urgent issues.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a home nurse directly responds to all patient calls and inquiries, then patient care quality and responsiveness are improved, but nurse workflow efficiency deteriorates due to frequent interruptions and time consumption
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a virtual assistant/chatbot as an intermediary between patients and home nurses. This intermediary handles routine inquiries, alarm interpretations, and basic troubleshooting, allowing nurses to focus on complex clinical decisions and urgent matters while maintaining responsive patient care through automated triage and escalation protocols
2Ease of operation
If patients are encouraged to contact nurses frequently for support, then patient confidence and therapy adherence improve, but nurse time availability deteriorates due to excessive calls
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual assistant enables patients to self-service for common needs including ordering dialysis supplies, interpreting machine alarms, troubleshooting connection issues, and accessing educational materials. This self-service capability maintains patient confidence and therapy adherence while significantly reducing the volume of routine calls to nurses
3Productivity
If administrative assistants answer patient calls, then nurse time is freed for clinical tasks, but medical expertise and availability deteriorate since assistants lack medical training
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the human administrative assistant with an AI-powered virtual assistant that can medically triage patient inquiries, interpret dialysis machine data, and determine appropriate escalation levels. This substitution maintains medical expertise quality through algorithmic decision-making while freeing nurses for clinical tasks
Data Source
AI summary
A virtual assistant/chatbot to improve clinical workflow for home renal replacement therapies is disclosed herein. A virtual assistant/chatbot includes a user interface configured to enable a patient to engage in a virtual chat session by typing, speaking, or otherwise providing information regarding a patient request or issue related to their renal replacement therapy. The virtual assistant/chatbot also includes a server configured to provide logic to respond to the patient's requests. The logic defines a sequence of questions and answers for resolving patient queries. The sequence of assistant/chatbot questions and patient answers may be configured in a node arrangement such that certain patient answers/requests lead to additional questions for additional information from a patient. The virtual assistant/chatbot is configured to answer patient requests automatically or determine when the patient request is to be immediately addressed by a clinician or later through a phone call, text, or email communication.