Healthcare's New Friend: Avatars

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When it comes to leading or teaching patients, avatars can make more approachable and relatable guides than their human counterparts.

Avatars are part of the intelligent virtual assistant market, which is expected to increase in North America at a compound annual growth rate of 33% between 2013 and 2020, according to Grand View Research. By 2020, global spending on IVA will reach $3.1 billion, the researcher found. Healthcare is helping drive this growth as organizations seek cost-effective yet engaging ways to interact with patients in order to meet federal mandates and target population health initiatives.

In July, Colorado Springs Health Partners (CSHP), which recently debuted its FollowMyHealth patient portal, will unveil an as yet unnamed avatar to help patients explore their health records, says Lynne Jones, director of marketing, in an interview. The avatar is designed to help the practice meet Meaningful Use 2's requirement to have at least 5% of patients engaged with the portal, she said.

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"We wanted a way to help us mete out metrics we need to get grant money for Meaningful Use," marketing manager Beth O'Brien tells InformationWeek. "It's hard to get patients to engage sometimes, especially when there's something new that rolls out, and we need them to go to certain areas of the portal."

The female-looking, ethnically neutral avatar will help patients navigate throughout the portal to locate electronic health record (EHR) information gathered from Allscripts, ask questions, schedule appointments, and refill e-prescriptions, Jones says. In addition to meeting Meaningful Use requirements, she adds, encouraging patients to use the portal reduces the time staff spends on these tasks, thereby improving overhead.

(Image: CSHP)

Although CSHP could have used real people as online guides, avatars are more effective and approachable, according to Kathy Wells, VP of customer engagement and self-service company CodeBaby. CodeBaby developed the IVA solution, including avatars and characters, for CSHP, she says in an interview.

The two companies -- which are located near each other -- are currently writing scripts to ensure that the avatar responds appropriately to patients' prompts

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