TCS and The Walton Centre UK to build AI-based Chatbot for patient care

TCS has now partnered with the UK-based The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust (The Walton Centre), a special hospital trust, to build an AI-based Chatbot that will help to reduce the waiting time for patients to visit a specialist consultant.

The collaboration is aimed at transforming the experience for outpatient referrals to neurologists.

Dr. Anita Krishnan, Divisional Clinical Director for Neurology, The Walton Centre, and a Consultant Neurologist specializing in headaches, said, "Technology is a huge part of medicine, and it’s exciting to work with TCS to create a new artificial intelligence-based solution which will help our patients. The chatbot system also has the potential to be extended into other areas of medicine, which could benefit even more patients. We are working closely with TCS and our other specialist partners to ensure the new solution is effective and safe and improves efficiency and patient outcomes."

Shalini Mathur, Business Unit Head, Public Services for the UK, Europe & ANZ, TCS, said, "We are pleased to partner with The Walton Centre to transform patient care in the UK using next-gen technologies. These technologies and solutions will help reduce waiting times for patients while improving the productivity of specialist consultants. This creates a blueprint for similar digital innovation in other clinical settings."

As per the report, these technologies and solutions will help to reduce waiting times for patients while improving the productivity of the specialist consultants.

On the working part, the chatbot will interact with the patient being referred to a neurology or headache specialist and compile a detailed medical history, which clinicians can review before the first appointment with that patient and recommend a further course of action. This will enhance their productivity and help bring down the waiting time for the patients.

The solution, which will be developed as a prototype, will leverage cloud-native, serverless technologies and conversational AI to ensure clinical effectiveness and safety.