Tana, a Healthcare Chatbot to Help Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic at a University Hospital in Argentina.

A Chatbot or Conversational Agent is a computer application that simulates the conversation with a human person (by text or voice), giving automated responses to people's needs. In the healthcare domain, chatbots can be beneficial to help patients, as a complement to care by health personnel, especially in times of high demand or constrained resources such as the COVID-19 Pandemic. In this paper we share the design and implementation of a healthcare chatbot called Tana at the Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires. Considering best practices and being aware of possible unintended consequences, we must take advantage of information and communication technologies, such as chatbots, to analyze and promote useful conversations for the health of all people.

Designing an Atopic Dermatitis Community that Integrates Patient Self-Uploaded Information into the EHR to Optimize Follow-up.

Atopic dermatitis is a common chronic dermatological disease in childhood that can affect people's quality of life. The aim of this study was to inquire about the difficulties, needs and interests related to the disease that people with eczema and their caregivers have; in order to develop a tool that is useful for the follow-up of the illness. Electronic surveys were sent to potential users and interviews were conducted with professionals who are specialized on the subject. The main findings allowed us to understand the challenges and situations they face on a daily basis, such as the difficulties related to the family support, the queries on the eczema flare-ups, the struggles with the adherence to treatment and the needs of optimizing their quality of life. These results helped us design a tool that allows patients and their companions to better monitor their disease while optimizing communication with their health professionals.

An Online Community for Patient with Psoriasis with Built-in Self-Reported Questionnaires.

This study presents an online psoriasis community developed with dermatologists in a PHR. We describe the interaction of users with this platform and the relationship between the use of self-report questionnaires, their results and users' subsequent contact with the healthcare system. Out of 2175 users that interacted with the platform, 477 visited the forums. 60% of those who completed questionnaires presented at least one abnormal result that prompted a recommendation for an outpatient visit. Although our data suggest a trend, we failed to find a statistically significant association between questionnaire severity and visits scheduling. To our knowledge, this is the first study that analyses the relationship between patient self-reported disease severity and the subsequent contact with the healthcare system.