Implementation of a Web-Based Chatbot to Guide Hospital Employees Return to Work during the COVID-19 Pandemic (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple policies and guidelines were issued and updated for healthcare personnel (HCP) COVID-19 testing and return-to-work (RTW) after reporting symptoms, exposures, or positive COVID-19 tests. The relatively high frequency of changes and complexity of the policies made it difficult for HCP to understand when they needed testing and were eligible to return to work, therefore calls to occupational health services (OHS) hotlines rapidly increased creating a need for other tools to guide HCP return to work. OBJECTIVE We aim to describe the development of the Return-to-Work Chatbot, and report its impact on demand for OHS support services during the first omicron surge. METHODS This study was conducted at Mass General Brigham, an integrated healthcare delivery system. RTW Chatbot was developed using agile design methodology. We mapped the RTW policy into a unified flow diagram that included all required questions and recommendations. We obtained chatbot data and OHS call data from December 10, 2021 to February 17, 2022. We compared use of OHS resources before and after the deployment of the RTW Chatbot. RESULTS In the 5 weeks post-deployment, a total of 5575 users used the RTW Chatbot. During the total of 10 weeks, the median number of daily calls that OHS received before and after deployment of the chatbot were 633 (IQR 251-934) and 115 (IQR 62-167), respectively. (p < 0.001). The median time from dialing the OHS phone number to hanging up the call decreased from 28 minutes and 22 seconds to 6 minutes and 25 seconds after the deployment of the chatbot (p <0,001). The median time an OHS hotline staff spent on the phone declined from 3 hours and 11 minutes per day to 47 minutes per day (p<0.001) over the 10 week period, saving approximately 16.8 hours per OHS staff member per week. CONCLUSIONS Using agile methodology, a chatbot can be rapidly designed and deployed to enable employees to efficiently receive guidance regarding returning to work that faithfully complies with the complex and shifting return-to-work policies which may reduce the utilization of OHS resources.