NHS Wales and Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board is to implement IBM’s virtual assistant to support COVID-19 questions from healthcare workers and the public.
CERi, an English and Welsh speaking virtual assistant from IBM, will soon go live to provide information to common COVID-19 questions, and is being provided for free for at least 90 days.
The solution, IBM Watson, provides natural language processing capabilities and AI to understand and respond to common questions.
Rob Thomas, general manager, IBM Data & AI “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.”
“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.”
Common questions the chatbot is programmed to answer include ‘What are symptoms?’, ‘How do I clean my home properly?’ and ‘How do I protect myself?’
NHS Wales will be working with IBM to customise the solution.