Apollo Hospitals rolled out AI-enabled COVID-19 risk self-assessment test

The Apollo chain of hospitals has launched an online self-assessment test that can help people discover their risk of contracting COVID-19. Once the test determines your risk level – low, medium or high – it automatically gives you directions on the next steps. 

The AI-enabled scanner app has been fed modules based on the guidelines of the World Health Organisation and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The app has been downloaded more than 100,000 times from various app stores. 

The AI-enabled chatbot app assesses a person’s risk of contracting COVID-19 based on age, type of ailments, body temperature, current symptoms followed by more specific COVID-19 symptoms and travel and contact history with COVID-19 patients. It also accesses the risks based on changes in symptoms. According to studies, the elderly and individuals with pre-existing conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and diabetes are more at risk in contracting the virus that has claimed more than 30,000 lives globally. 

Based on the results, it also gives various recommendations depending on the risk level of contracting COVID-19, from self-isolation to medical attention, online consultation, to social distancing. Users with perceived low-risk are advised to stay at home, practice isolation, and monitor symptoms. Users with medium risk are advised to seek consultation, while high-risk users are requested to seek medical attention and get tested immediately. It, however, states that its analysis “should not be taken as medical advice.”

Apollo Hospitals is not alone in engaging AI-based chatbots to fight the pandemic; Mumbai-based AI firm Haptik also launched a COVID-19 help-desk, a chatbot called nCov help-desk, that educates people about the virus and dispels myths related to it.