AI chatbot to help Chinese paitents improve knowledge for better self-management.
Healthcare company, Novo Nordisk plan to develop a Chinese-speaking, AI chatbot for diabetic patients.
Combining Novo Nordisk’s expertise and experience in diabetes care, and Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and AI services, the companies will collaborate to deliver an AI chatbot with a smart, natural-language interface to help more Chinese diabetic patients improve their knowledge of the disease for better self-management.
Christine Zhou, senior vice president and president of Novo Nordisk Region China said, innovations in medicine should be accompanied by a patient-centric philosophy that extends to empowering patients to manage their disease.
“We hope to do just that by providing patients with a more in-depth understanding of the disease’s risks and related knowledge and improving their quality of life with our new Chinese-speaking chatbot,” she said.
Diabetes is the fourth most fatal disease in the world. According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), by the end of 2019, there were approximately 463 million diabetes patients between the ages of 20 and 79 worldwide, yet nearly half of those affected had not undergone a proper medical diagnosis. By the time these patients are diagnosed with diabetes, many will have already experienced complications such as eye, kidney, and heart damage.
China has the highest number of diabetics globally with 129 million patients. Of which, less than 16 per cent can control their disease well due to the lack of timely diagnoses, insufficient attention, medication, and understanding about these key matters. The new chatbot thus aims to provide answers to patients’ everyday questions and allow them to be more aware and prepared to cope with the disease and live a better-quality life.
Leveraging the Dialog Engine, a chatbot training and management platform developed by Microsoft Software Technology Center Asia (STCA) for local industries and customers, and a large database developed by Novo Nordisk that covers most of the questions frequently asked by diabetic patients, the technology will enable patients to communicate with the chatbot in Chinese via both voice and text. The visual dashboard and future intelligent operation technology, that tap on natural language processing (NLP) and deep Neural Networks, enable the chatbot to have rapid iteration and upgrade as it learns from its interactions.
The chatbot will launch in early 2021 on Novo Nordisk’s digital patient support platforms. Both Novo Nordisk and Microsoft have made a commitment to a “healthcare + AI” model and are setting a new benchmark in AI-powered chronic disease management, driving critical advancements in healthcare.
