How Microsoft helps medical teams fight Covid-19 through an AI-based healthcare bot

Information is health seems to be the current version of the common saying “information is wealth,” a phrase widely used in information technology (IT) circles to refer to the use of technologies to gather and analyse data for a better return on investment. 

Currently, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) bots to gather information has taken a centre stage as the world fights back the Covid-19 pandemic.

Technology giant Microsoft, in a recent blog post, highlighted how its healthcare bot is being used to screen potential Covid 19 patients. 

The US centres for disease control and prevention (CDC) has rolled out a Covid-19 assessment bot that can help check symptoms and risk factors for people worried about infection. The bot also collects critical data at the backend for analysis by medical professionals.

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“Whether it is contacting a medical provider or managing the illness safely at home. The bot, will initially be available on the U.S. centres for disease control and prevention website,” wrote Hadas Bitran, Group Manager, Microsoft Healthcare Israel, and Jean Gabarra, General Manager, Health AI.

The  AI bot from Microsoft is built on an Azure-based public cloud service that also allows other organisations to quickly build and deploy AI-powered bots for websites and applications based on the needs of the medical fraternity battling the pandemic. The bots can be customised to suit an organisation’s medical protocols.

The Redmond, Washington based technology giant said its chatbot helps CDCs assessment bot to screen patients. The service can help medical teams determine which high-risk individuals will get access to limited medical resources and who can safely take care of themselves at home. 

Read: Nvidia offers Covid-19 researchers free access to its genome-sequencing software

“To assist customers in the rapid deployment of their COVID-19 bots, Microsoft is making available a set of COVID-19 response templates that customers can use and modify,” the blog post said.

Microsoft claimed that customised versions of the bot were fielding more than 1 million messages per day from people concerned about Covid-19 infections.

In India, Reliance owned AI bot maker Haptik has released a WhatsApp chatbot called 'MyGov Corona Helpdesk' to help with queries about Covid 19.