A Guide to Chatbots for COVID-19 Screening at Pediatric Health Care Facilities

JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2020 Apr 30;6(2):e18808. doi: 10.2196/18808.

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has required institutions to rapidly adapt to changing public health circumstances. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has encouraged health care facilities to explore novel health care delivery modes. However, many institutions may not be prepared to begin offering digital health and telehealth services. Chatbots are one digital health tool that can help evolve triage and screening processes in a scalable manner. Here, we present a decision-making and implementation framework for deploying COVID-19 screening chatbots at pediatric health care facilities.

Keywords: COVID-19: pediatrics; chatbots; digital health; screening.

MeSH terms

  • Betacoronavirus
  • COVID-19
  • COVID-19 Testing
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S.
  • Child
  • Clinical Laboratory Techniques / methods*
  • Coronavirus / isolation & purification*
  • Coronavirus Infections / diagnosis*
  • Coronavirus Infections / epidemiology
  • Delivery of Health Care / methods*
  • Disease Outbreaks / prevention & control*
  • Health Facilities
  • Humans
  • Mass Screening
  • Pandemics / prevention & control
  • Pneumonia, Viral / diagnosis*
  • Pneumonia, Viral / epidemiology
  • Practice Guidelines as Topic*
  • Public Health
  • Public Health Practice
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Telemedicine / methods*
  • Triage
  • United States / epidemiology