Engagements with government agencies, healthcare
organizations and academic institutions around the world including
in Arkansas, California, Georgia, New
York, Texas, Czech Republic, Greece, Poland, Spain
and UK
ARMONK, New York, April 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With COVID-19
affecting 206 countries, areas and territories, IBM (NYSE: IBM) is
helping government agencies, healthcare organizations and academic
institutions throughout the world use AI to put critical data and
information into the hands of their citizens.
With a flood of information requests from citizens, wait times
in many areas to receive answers can exceed two hours. Available
for no charge for at least 90 days and available to our client's
citizens online or by phone, IBM Watson Assistant for Citizens on
the IBM public cloud brings together Watson Assistant, Natural
Language Processing capabilities from IBM Research, and
state-of-art enterprise AI search capabilities with Watson
Discovery, to understand and respond to common questions about
COVID-19.
"While helping government agencies and healthcare institutions
use AI to get critical information out to their citizens remains a
high priority right now, the current environment has made it clear
that every business in every industry should find ways to digitally
engage with their clients and employees," said Rob Thomas, general manager, IBM Data & AI.
"With today's news, IBM is taking years of experience
in helping thousands of global businesses and institutions use
Natural Language Processing and other advanced AI technologies to
better meet the demands of their constituents, and now applying it
to the COVID-19 crisis. AI has the power to be your assistant
during this uncertain time."
Watson Assistant for Citizens leverages currently available data
from external sources, including guidance from the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) and local sources such as
links to school closings, news and documents on a state website.
IBM already is delivering this service across the United States, as well as engaging with
organizations globally in Czech
Republic, Finland,
Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain, UK and more.
Here are examples where IBM is engaging with government and
healthcare agencies on Watson Assistant for Citizens:
- ARKANSAS: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences –
In 9 days, deployed a virtual agent so citizens can get their
questions answered quickly about testing, symptoms or resources.
Information is automatically sent to a mobile COVID-19 triage
clinic electronically to help speed response. Average registration
time has been reduced by fifty percent for those using the
agent.
- CALIFORNIA:
City of Lancaster in
Los Angeles County – COVID-19
information for citizens on common questions such as symptoms and
recommended procedures to follow in case of infection.
- GEORGIA: Children's
Healthcare of Atlanta – The
"COVID-19 Pediatric Assessment Tool" walks parents through a series
of questions and results in suggested next steps that a parent
should take. Recommendations on next steps are made according to
the healthcare system's established protocols.
- NEW YORK: County of
Otsego – COVID-19-related
information will be available within the next few days for citizens
to help them quickly get their health and non-health related
questions answered regarding the pandemic. Otsego County's COVID-19 virtual agent will be
able to answer citizen's questions like: "How do I apply for
unemployment?"
- TEXAS: City of Austin – COVID-19-related
information will soon be available for citizens with interactive
conversation on where to get testing and other information.
- CZECH REPUBLIC: Czech
Ministry of Health – COVID-19 virtual agent called "Anežka"
advises citizens about prevention, treatment and other related
topics on the coronavirus.
- GREECE: Hellenic Ministry
of Digital Governance – COVID-19-related information for
citizens and interactive conversation on preventive and
precautionary measures issued by the Greek Government.
- POLAND: Polish Ministry of
Health – COVID-19 information for Polish citizens on common
questions such as symptoms and recommended procedures to follow in
case of infection.
- SPAIN: Andalusian
Government – A virtual agent to help respond to citizen's
queries about COVID-19 is available through the app "Salud
Responde" and the Public Agency for Health Emergencies (EPES)
website, built also in collaboration with the Andalusian Health
Service (SAS).
- UK: National Health Service Wales: Cwm Taf Morgannwg
University Health Board – CERi, an English and Welsh speaking
virtual assistant, will soon go live to support healthcare workers
and the general public in Wales
who need information or have questions on the prevention and
treatment of COVID-19 along with general information about the
virus.
"Austin residents are counting
on us to provide timely updates on COVID-19 response," said
Tauseef Khan, Chief Technology
Officer, City of Austin, Texas.
"The City is pleased to use artificial intelligence technology to
respond to that need, with a tool that quickly and easily
helps residents find the information they need 24/7."
"The AI solution from IBM will be a great resource for the
county's residents and will help alleviate call center volume to
allow county employees to dedicate efforts elsewhere," said
Brian Pokorny, Director of
Information Technologies, County of Otsego, New York.
Using information provided by clients, Watson Assistant for
Citizens automates responses to frequently asked questions about
COVID-19 that come in via phone call or text, such as "What are
symptoms?", "How do I clean my home properly?" and "How do I
protect myself?"
State and local government agencies, hospitals or other
healthcare organizations can choose to customize the solution to
address questions specific to their area or region, including "What
are cases in my neighborhood?", "How long are schools shut down?"
and "Where can I get tested?"
IBM is offering Watson Assistant for Citizens for no charge for
at least 90 days and will assist with initial set up, which can
typically be done in a few days. The initial solution is available
in English and Spanish and can be tailored to 13 languages.
The offer includes access to 15 pre-trained COVID-19 "intents"
or queries. "Intents" are purposes or goals that are
expressed in a customer's input, such as answering a question. By
recognizing the intent expressed in a customer's input,
the Watson Assistant service can choose the correct
dialog flow for responding to it.
Clients can also work with IBM to customize the offering on top
of the base model and intents to include information related
specifically to a city or region for specific information that is
pertinent to those citizens or constituents, as well as
integrate with client's back-end ERP systems.
IBM is also working with global businesses in other industries
to apply AI to help them respond to COVID-19 and reimagine the way
work will get done in this new operating environment.
For more information about IBM efforts around COVID-19, visit
https://www.ibm.com/covid19 and
https://newsroom.ibm.com/covid-19.
For more information about Watson Assistant for Citizens, visit
https://www.ibm.com/watson/covid-response.
For more information about how businesses in any industry can
use Watson Assistant, visit:
https://www.ibm.com/cloud/watson-assistant/.
Media Contact:
Hanna
Smigala
IBM Media Relations
1-203-512-5497
smigala@us.ibm.com
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