Singaporean AI health tech startup Bot MD has entered into partnerships with major Indonesian organisations to utilise AI assistant technology in driving patient and clinician experience. 

WHAT IT'S ABOUT

The startup signed a memorandum of understanding with Siloam Hospitals Group to automate and scale patient-reported outcome measures (PROM) across its hospital chain by powering Siloam's WhatsApp with the Bot MD Care AI chatbot. 

During visits, the chatbot automatically notifies patients via WhatsApp to collect their baseline medical condition. It automatically reminds them and collects their PROMs pre- and post-surgery and then scores their outcomes. The AI platform can also deliver automatic reminders and education information to patients. 

Bot MD Care is now available to patients receiving treatments for heart failure or ischemic heart disease at Siloam Hospitals Lippo Village in Tangerang. There are also plans to progressively roll out the AI service across other hospitals later. Siloam Hospitals will also expand the service to cover other clinical areas and integrate it into its EMR system to make it easier for clinicians to review patient progress.

Meanwhile, Bot MD also partnered with the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI) to embed its AI assistant on the latter's website. This integration enables more than 200,000 doctor members of the organisation to instantly search for association information, IDI services and national guidelines. 

Through the IDI Bot, doctors can easily seek information on new memberships, apply for an electronic membership card, report issues with membership activation, renew their competency certificate, and submit feedback to IDI. Available in both Bahasa Indonesia and English, the IDI Bot has been trained on frequently asked questions from IDI members. 

WHY IT MATTERS

As one of Indonesia's largest private hospital groups with 41 hospitals and 66 clinics, Siloam treats and provides care for more than five million unique patients each year. Adopting an AI chatbot will help scale its data collection across a range of clinical conditions, as well as benchmark and measure patient outcomes across its hospitals, which ultimately informs clinicians in improving their quality of care.

Meanwhile, Bot MD is supporting IDI's digital transformation journey to improve the quality and availability of its services. The association is keen to expand its partnership with the startup in the future by powering WhatsApp and its other chat platforms with AI to improve access to services for its members.

Following positive outcomes from this partnership, Bot MD now plans to introduce the service to other medical associations across Southeast Asia. 

THE LARGER TREND

Two years ago, Bot MD raised $5 million in a funding round which went to its regional expansion efforts. The company had locked its sights on Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and India.

During the pandemic, its AI assistant has been deployed across public hospitals in Singapore to aid with remote vital signs monitoring and collection.