{"title":"ASHABot: An LLM-Powered Chatbot to Support the Informational Needs of Community Health Workers","authors":"Pragnya Ramjee, Mehak Chhokar, Bhuvan Sachdeva, Mahendra Meena, Hamid Abdullah, Aditya Vashistha, Ruchit Nagar, Mohit Jain","doi":"arxiv-2409.10913","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Community health workers (CHWs) provide last-mile healthcare services but\nface challenges due to limited medical knowledge and training. This paper\ndescribes the design, deployment, and evaluation of ASHABot, an LLM-powered,\nexperts-in-the-loop, WhatsApp-based chatbot to address the information needs of\nCHWs in India. Through interviews with CHWs and their supervisors and log\nanalysis, we examine factors affecting their engagement with ASHABot, and\nASHABot's role in addressing CHWs' informational needs. We found that ASHABot\nprovided a private channel for CHWs to ask rudimentary and sensitive questions\nthey hesitated to ask supervisors. CHWs trusted the information they received\non ASHABot and treated it as an authoritative resource. CHWs' supervisors\nexpanded their knowledge by contributing answers to questions ASHABot failed to\nanswer, but were concerned about demands on their workload and increased\naccountability. We emphasize positioning LLMs as supplemental fallible\nresources within the community healthcare ecosystem, instead of as replacements\nfor supervisor support.","PeriodicalId":501541,"journal":{"name":"arXiv - CS - Human-Computer Interaction","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"arXiv - CS - Human-Computer Interaction","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/arxiv-2409.10913","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Community health workers (CHWs) provide last-mile healthcare services but
face challenges due to limited medical knowledge and training. This paper
describes the design, deployment, and evaluation of ASHABot, an LLM-powered,
experts-in-the-loop, WhatsApp-based chatbot to address the information needs of
CHWs in India. Through interviews with CHWs and their supervisors and log
analysis, we examine factors affecting their engagement with ASHABot, and
ASHABot's role in addressing CHWs' informational needs. We found that ASHABot
provided a private channel for CHWs to ask rudimentary and sensitive questions
they hesitated to ask supervisors. CHWs trusted the information they received
on ASHABot and treated it as an authoritative resource. CHWs' supervisors
expanded their knowledge by contributing answers to questions ASHABot failed to
answer, but were concerned about demands on their workload and increased
accountability. We emphasize positioning LLMs as supplemental fallible
resources within the community healthcare ecosystem, instead of as replacements
for supervisor support.