How Voice-to-Text and NLP-based solutions can drive efficiency into Telehealthcare

According to data from CBInsights, in Q1 of 2020, deals in the TeleHealth space hit a record high. Over 103 Telehealth companies raised over US $1.5 billion in capital, almost four times the number in Q4 of 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the rules of the game for telehealthcare, with remote consultations becoming the norm as people hesitate to visit hospitals in person.

Broadly, there are three major categories within the Telehealth landscape that have attracted major investor attention amidst the pandemic – mental health, physical health and behavioral health.

For example, Lyra, a company that specializes in Teletherapy connects employees with mental health coaches, therapists and offers personalized digital therapy programs. On the physical health side, companies like Hinge Health use sensors to guide users with home physical therapy or rehabilitation programs. These are in addition to many telehealth companies that serve as a bridge between specialist doctors and patients. The examples are several, but the point is – telehealth has gone exponential over the two to three months.

Expertise in Voice-to-Text and NLP-based solutions are critical as we start serving TeleHealth enterprises.

Using Text analytics and NLP based algorithms to drive automation in telehealthcare is a no-brainer. Telehealth companies are grappling with a sudden explosion in demand and it is critical that automation takes over key processes.

Doctors, therapists and online healthcare professionals need to spend time on core processes that use their expertise in specialized fields. Time saved in listening to voicemails or writing out prescriptions is critical; Doctors and specialists can use that time to serve more patients, while software and automation takes over the process of documentation, summarization, prescription, and communication.

Of course, we need to have a human-in-the-loop to ensure quality and compliance guidelines are met, but it certainly drives efficiency, enabling the caregiver to serve more patients in a day.

In addition to the efficiency factor, NLP-based automation also enables the doctor or therapist to work with focus and concentration. They do not have to bother about listening to a detailed account of a patient’s case and history or even write out a prescription manually. Text extraction solution from EHR records of patients can also be automated, while privacy guidelines are adhered to.

To summarize, using Voice-to-Text and NLP-based solutions will drive the following:

1. Faster turnaround time by doctor or health specialist
2. Ease of addressing call backlogs, saving time
3. Higher accuracy of communication and reduction in error rates
4. Usage of pre-approved templates for prescriptions and other patient communication
5. Ease physician workloads
6. Enhance patient experience

In addition to all the benefits mentioned above, using automation for call scheduling and clinical documentation can have a far-reaching positive impact on quality of care.

While individual patient records are still confidential, Telehealth companies will do well to use data to make key decisions, especially to drive continuous improvement and long-term care for patients.

For example, when a patient schedules a call for mental wellbeing with an online therapist, it is not only about providing quality care in that single call.

It is crucial for the telehealth company to build an underlying data infrastructure, to drive data-driven patient care. This requires a robust big data solution to be architected. We need to build out a data platform that captures raw data in a Data Lake, then converts it into a structured data warehouse. Data quality validation is a critical process as well.

At teX.ai, we bring together combined expertise in both big data engineering and analytics, in addition to the domain knowledge in healthcare. This combination lends itself well to serve rapid-growth telehealth companies across the world.

Give us a shout, if you would like to talk to our NLP experts in healthcare and life sciences. Visit https://www.tex-ai.com/ for more details.