JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Artificial intelligence-assisted conversational agents have been applied and developed in outpatient departments to improve health services in China, but there has been little research that evaluates the effect of artificial intelligence-assisted conversational agents on the patient experience related to physicians during outpatient visits.

Objective:

This aim of this study was to examine whether the use of artificial intelligence-assisted conversational agents improves patient experience related to physicians during outpatient visits, further evaluate the extent to which the artificial intelligence-assisted conversational agents could improve the patient experience, and find out the difference in patient experience between conversational agent users and nonusers.

Methods:

We used the Chinese Outpatient Experience Questionnaire to survey the patient experience related to physicians during outpatient visits. A sample of 392 adult residents who sought outpatient services from tertiary public hospitals in China was selected by random sampling. T-tests were used to test the mean difference in the patient experience scores between conversational agent users and nonusers, and multiple linear regression analysis was further conducted to determine whether the use of artificial intelligence-assisted conversational agents during outpatient visits was associated with a better patient experience related to physicians.

Results:

Conversational agent user reported significantly higher scores than nonusers in the total patient experience score (t392=5.589, P<.001), the 19 items and 4 dimensions of physician-patient communication (t392=5.013, P=.006), health information (t392=5.758, P<.001), short-term outcome (t392=4.608, P<.001) and general satisfaction (t392=5.080, P<.001). Multiple linear regression results further showed the use of artificial intelligence-assisted conversational agents during outpatient visits influenced the patient experience related to physicians (β=0.298, P<.001). And after controlling for other factors on participant characteristics including demographic and visit information, the use of artificial intelligence-assisted conversational agents increased the total patient experience score related to physicians during outpatient visits by 20.5%.

Conclusions:

The use of artificial intelligence-assisted conversational agents could improve patient experience related to physicians during outpatient visits, especially in terms of making physician-patient communication better, accessing more health information, ameliorating short-term outcomes and increasing general satisfaction. Therefore, public hospitals should be encouraged to promote the application and adoption of conversational agents in outpatient departments so as to continuously improve patient experience related to physicians during outpatient visits.