NUHS Launches Bot MD’s AI Clinical Assistant for Instant COVID-19 Information Access
NUHS-Bot MD AI assistant gives frontline healthcare workers instant access to COVID-19 protocols, drug info, and hospital tools.
The AI bot is used to streamline and provide information instantly including new protocols and directives for COVID-19 to frontline healthcare workers.
The National University Health System (NUHS) and Bot MD announced today that they are partnering to launch the NUHS-Bot MD AI clinical assistant app for frontline medical staff to instantly search hospital specific information including COVID-19 guidelines and operational directives.
Over 500 healthcare professionals, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists and medical social workers from NUHS have benefited from the first-phase roll-out, with plans to expand access to more than 3,000 staff across the NUHS healthcare cluster.
Healthcare workers today are facing more pressure than ever following the COVID-19 outbreak in late 2019. They are currently on the frontlines battling the COVID-19 disease while also concurrently managing health issues in the local communities. With limited time and resources, they are expected to be equipped with all the information needed to react swiftly and treat patients.
“Healthcare has become more complex and clinicians need timely information that is easily accessible. Using a familiar messaging format, the NUHS-Bot MD AI assistant aims to put the power of information instantly at the fingertips of each and every clinical professional,” said NUHS Group Chief Technology Officer, Associate Professor Ngiam Kee Yuan.
The NUHS-Bot MD AI assistant is a chatbot that instantly answers questions from hospital staff about hospital protocols, COVID-19 operational directives, drug dosage information, drug formulary, and even on-call rosters. It also allows hospital staff to record their temperatures by integrating the daily temperature reporting form within the Bot interface.
The NUHS-Bot MD AI assistant is accessible on any smartphone device and serves as a 24/7 virtual assistant that benefits hospital clinical staff, allowing them to access healthcare information anytime and anywhere, even when they are off duty. The smartphone app also allows hospitals to build custom clinical tools based on their own guidelines and protocols.
One of the custom tools within the NUHS-Bot MD platform developed by the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore (NCIS) clinicians is a chemotherapy cost calculator that instantly calculates treatment costs based on the National University Hospital (NUH) dosing regimens and drug prices. This tool serves as a useful financial counseling aid for NCIS clinicians and frontline medical social workers to help their new cancer patients determine appropriate treatment options.
The NUHS-Bot MD AI assistant will be rolled out in phases across NUHS campuses, starting with NUH. The app was piloted in December 2019 has since benefitted over 500 doctors and clinical staff within NUH.
NUHS plans to roll out the NUHS-Bot MD Chatbot to the other entities within the healthcare cluster including Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, Alexandra Hospital as well as the National University Polyclinics by the end of 2020.
"The NUHS-Bot MD’s biggest value for me as a busy clinician is that it helps me get the clinical information I need, whenever and wherever I need it. Whether I am looking for clinical workflows, call roster information or even counseling a patient on the cost of their chemotherapy regimen — I am able to search for and obtain all this information instantly on the NUHS-Bot MD app."
- Dr Jen Wei Ying
Associate Consultant, Department of Haematology-Oncology, NCIS
