Robot first, doctor second
The company’s development director, Dmitry Domarev, told socialbites.ca that the Russian health service SberZdorovye, which provides services for the search and selection of doctors, has launched a remote psychological assistance system based on new algorithms. The project was launched on the basis of a platform for remote monitoring of patients with various diseases.
“For about two years, we have been implementing remote monitoring projects for patients with various diseases in more than 40 regions of Russia. Some regions, which previously implemented a monitoring platform, want to test a new service that they can use to improve the emotional state of employees and citizens, ”said the interlocutor of socialbites.ca.
While the service is not available for mass users, companies and government agencies can place orders.
According to regulations, the client must provide SberHealth with a list of people who need psychological monitoring, such as pregnant or burnout-prone employees. Payment for a consultation with a psychologist lies with the client, that is, free for the end user. In this case, we can also talk about a few meetings with an expert.
According to Domarev, the new system assumes that a robot will call a person and ask various questions about the psychological state, for example, the presence of suicidal thoughts.
“We took an international scientific community-approved questionnaire and loaded it into the robot. The test includes questions about the presence of feelings of depression, general well-being, and a desire to do something. The robot processes the answers, sends them to a specialist, who in turn indicates a psychological condition in a person, such as anxiety or other extremes. can identify his emotional points, ”Domarev explained.
The basic questionnaire consists of three questions, but the robot can ask additional questions if the information from the user is not sufficient.
Then, analyzing the received answers, the robot determines the psycho-emotional state of the person. Further, the information is transferred to a specialist for re-analysis for the presence of deviations from the norm. The specialist should make sure that help is really needed and agree on the timing of the remote consultation.
SberHealth expects that in a few months, the psychological monitoring system will be supplemented with artificial intelligence-based solutions that will help analyze the information received during the conversation between the robot and the patient.
“We see broad prospects for the use of AI in medicine.
We want the AI to analyze the patient’s voice with intonation, possible use of profanity, speech volume, and other parameters. So depending on how the patient communicates in terms of emotions, the neural network can provide additional information to the doctor or psychologist who will be working with the person,” Domarev explained.
Artificial intelligence instead of psychologist
Olya, founder of AIBY health technology company (a company specializing in mental health and providing telemedicine services), states that psychology, especially mental health, is one of the most important areas where artificial intelligence has been used recently. Interview with socialbites.ca Osokin.
“AI can assist practitioners before, during or after sessions, which is what this program is trying to achieve. Recording data, managing record keeping, and initiating automated follow-up actions will free up valuable time for the professional psychologist,” stresses Osokina.
According to him, AI will be able to provide more targeted interaction with those who need it most and when it is urgently needed.
“It is important to note that today, specialist psychologists do not always agree on such innovations. Some specialists are keeping up with the times and understand the need for technology in connection with medicine. Others are sure that only one person can understand a person.
One of the arguments of those who doubt the relevance of technologies in psychological practice is that the machine recognizes the same answer to a question as the same, and a person can determine the differences according to the psychotype of the patient, ”says the interlocutor of Gazeta. .Ru.
Anastasia Afanasyeva, clinical director of Alter, an online platform for the selection of psychotherapists, psychologists and psychotherapists, doubts the success of the development.
“On the one hand, the availability of psychological help should be increased, on the other hand, the field of psychology and psychiatry is quite narrow. With answers alone, without assessing appearance, facial expressions and general context, it is difficult to assess a person’s condition, the risk of error is very high. I can assume that there will be no significant reduction in social stress, because it depends not only on the availability of psychological help, but also on other social factors: the level of illness, unemployment, stability of the situation, natural disasters and other factors,” Afanasyeva believes.
Also, according to him, many people may not reveal the necessary details to the robot, so the information he receives may be irrelevant.
However, the developers only use the robot in the initial phase of testing and transfer patients to a human psychologist. According to SberHealth, such a system could become the gold standard for future psychological assistance using advanced AI.