Artificial intelligence to beat COVID-19: Symptoma’s chatbot calculates your risk of a COVID-19 infection in a reliable, fast, and uncomplicated manner. Since last week, the tool is now also supporting the City of Vienna in its pandemic management, in cooperation with the Vienna Social Fund (FSW). Users can find out via self-check whether their symptoms indicate a COVID-19 infection. If this is the case, an appointment can be made for immediate testing. The service finds an overwhelming response: 1.5 million calls have been registered in the first 24 hours only.
Fever, a cough, and a sore throat can be a sign of the flu – but might also indicate a COVID-19 infection. If you are concerned about your symptoms, the chatbot offers help: you can easily access the tool on the City of Vienna’s website. “The digital symptom checker is no substitute for a doctor nor an actual test. However, it is a valuable tool for a first health assessment and helps to decide whether further clarification is needed”, says Peter Hacker, the city council of the Viennese health department. The chatbot also relieves the national health hotline 1450, which is currently confronted with about 7,735 calls per day.
The chatbot developed by Symptoma GmbH is easily accessible via computer or smartphone – without the need to download or install anything. Based on around 20 simple yes-or-no questions that refer to possible symptoms or the potential contact with an infected person, an artificial intelligence calculates the probability of an infection. Users then receive a recommendation depending on their statements, regarding the severity of symptoms or mobility, for instance, to either visit one of the two Viennese testing stations or get tested at home.
The symptom checker was implemented by the Vienna Social Fund (FSW), by order of the City of Vienna, in cooperation with Symptoma GmbH. The artificial intelligence is based on an epidemiological questionnaire from the MA 15 (municipal authorities of health), which is being updated continuously. When evaluating the need for getting tested, information on symptoms as well as criteria for testing asymptomatic people is taken into account.
The new tool is met with great resonance: within the first 24 hours after the official launch, 1.5 million users had consulted the chatbot. This clearly shows the high demand for digital solutions in addition to the phone hotline. Currently, the Symptoma chatbot is only available in Vienna. However, there are already discussions going on with other federal states to implement the chatbot.
What makes the tool special is that it is the first AI worldwide with the capability to digitally screen citizens for their risk of COVID-19. Via the free text option, users can enter additional symptoms that are matched with more than 20,000 other diseases in Symptoma’s disease database. The accuracy of the risk assessment has been estimated at over 96 percent, and the chatbot solution is a certified medical product.