Are Conversational Agents Used at Scale by Companies Offering Digital Health Services for the Management and Prevention of Diabetes?

Roman Keller, Jiali Yao, Gisbert Wilhelm Teepe, Sven Hartmann, Kim-Morgaine Lohse, Florian von Wangenheim, Florian von Wangenheim, Falk Müller-Riemenschneider, Falk Müller-Riemenschneider, Falk Müller-Riemenschneider, Jacqueline Louise Mair, Jacqueline Louise Mair, Tobias Kowatsch, Tobias Kowatsch, Tobias Kowatsch

2021

Abstract

Successful interventions to prevent and manage type 2 diabetes rely on long-term, day-to-day decisions which take place outside of clinical settings. In this context, human resources are difficult to scale up, and leveraging Conversational agents (CAs) could be one way to scale up healthcare to tackle the emerging epidemic of type 2 diabetes. The objective of this paper is to assess the degree to which CAs are employed by top-funded digital health companies that target the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes. Companies were identified via two venture capital databases, i.e. Crunchbase Pro and Pitchbook. Two independent reviewers screened results and the final list of companies was validated and revised by three independent digital health experts. The companies’ digital services (usually mobile applications) were accessed and reviewed for the utilisation of CAs. To better understand the purpose of identified CAs, relevant publications were identified via PubMed, Google Scholar, ACM Digital Library and on the companies’ website. Nine out of 15 companies’ digital services were accessible to the authors and only in one case a CA was employed. The uptake of CAs by top-funded digital health companies targeting type-2 diabetes is still low.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Keller R., Yao J., Teepe G., Hartmann S., Lohse K., von Wangenheim F., Müller-Riemenschneider F., Mair J. and Kowatsch T. (2021). Are Conversational Agents Used at Scale by Companies Offering Digital Health Services for the Management and Prevention of Diabetes?.In Proceedings of the 14th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 4: Scale-IT-up, ISBN 978-989-758-490-9, pages 811-816. DOI: 10.5220/0010412708110816

in Bibtex Style

@conference{scale-it-up21,
author={Roman Keller and Jiali Yao and Gisbert Teepe and Sven Hartmann and Kim-Morgaine Lohse and Florian von Wangenheim and Falk Müller-Riemenschneider and Jacqueline Mair and Tobias Kowatsch},
title={Are Conversational Agents Used at Scale by Companies Offering Digital Health Services for the Management and Prevention of Diabetes?},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 14th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 4: Scale-IT-up,},
year={2021},
pages={811-816},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010412708110816},
isbn={978-989-758-490-9},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 14th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 4: Scale-IT-up,
TI - Are Conversational Agents Used at Scale by Companies Offering Digital Health Services for the Management and Prevention of Diabetes?
SN - 978-989-758-490-9
AU - Keller R.
AU - Yao J.
AU - Teepe G.
AU - Hartmann S.
AU - Lohse K.
AU - von Wangenheim F.
AU - Müller-Riemenschneider F.
AU - Mair J.
AU - Kowatsch T.
PY - 2021
SP - 811
EP - 816
DO - 10.5220/0010412708110816