Prospective mixed-methods study evaluating the potential of a voicebot (CovBot) to relieve German health authorities during the COVID-19 infodemic

Vanessa Voelskow; Claudia Meßner; Tobias Kurth; Amelie Busam; Toivo Glatz; Natalie Ebert

doi:10.1177/20552076231180677

Prospective mixed-methods study evaluating the potential of a voicebot (CovBot) to relieve German health authorities during the COVID-19 infodemic

Digit Health. 2023 Jun 7:9:20552076231180677. doi: 10.1177/20552076231180677. eCollection 2023 Jan-Dec.

Authors

Vanessa Voelskow¹, Claudia Meßner¹, Tobias Kurth¹, Amelie Busam¹, Toivo Glatz¹, Natalie Ebert¹

Affiliation

¹ Institute of Public Health at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

Abstract

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, telephone hotlines of local health authorities in Germany were overloaded due to information requests by the public.

Objective: Evaluating the use of a COVID-19-specific voicebot (CovBot) in local health authorities in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigates the performance of the CovBot by assessing a perceptible relief of staff in the hotline service.

Methods: This prospective mixed-methods study enrolled local health authorities in Germany from 01 February 2021 to 11 February 2022 to deploy the CovBot, which was mainly designed to answer frequently asked questions. To capture the user perspective and acceptance, we performed semistructured interviews and online surveys with their staff, conducted an online survey among callers, and analyzed the performance metrics of the CovBot.

Results: The CovBot was implemented in 20 local health authorities serving 6.1 million German citizens and processed almost 1.2 million calls during the study period. The overall assessment was that the CovBot contributed to a perceived relief of the hotline service. In a survey among callers, 79% indicated that a voicebot could not replace a human. The analyzed anonymous metadata revealed that 15% of calls hung up immediately, 32% after hearing an FAQ answer, and 51% of calls were forwarded to the local health authority offices.

Conclusions: A voicebot primarily answering FAQs can provide additional support to relieve the hotline service of local health authorities in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. For complex concerns, a forwarding option to a human proved to be an essential functionality.

Keywords: COVID-19; Voicebot; conversational hotline agents; conversational technologies; digital health; evaluation; hotline; infodemic; pandemics; public health.