Empowering Smart Healthcare with Generative AI, Part 2: The patient’s journey

Generative AI (Gen AI) is having a significant impact across almost every industry. Nowhere is this more true than in the area of healthcare, where Gen AI is enhancing the quality of care and efficiency, as well as adding value to the personalized user experience.

We are now fully in the era of Smart Healthcare 4.0. This involves the use of advanced technologies like AI, IoT, and big data to improve healthcare delivery. The goal is to provide more personalized, efficient, and effective care by connecting patients, doctors, and devices. As a leading technology company, it is no surprise that ASUS – with its Gen AI-supported healthcare products and services – is playing an important role in this healthcare revolution.

ASUS offers innovative smart healthcare products and services to both healthcare institutions and individual users. In this article, I will explore how we are empowering patients with products such as our Zenbo Junior II home companion robots, ASUS HealthHub for remote care, and smart health wearables like our ASUS VivoWatch.

For more: Promoting the Integration of Smart Healthcare with Virtual and Real Elements: Empowering Future Medical Solutions with Generative AI, Part 1.

Revolutionizing Senior Care with Zenbo Junior II: The Ultimate Home Companion

Healthcare should be a continuous conversation, extending from hospitals to the home, especially for seniors who may lack the ability to care for themselves or have the necessary support at home.

That's why we've introduced the Zenbo Junior II, a health companion robot designed specifically for seniors. It combines Gen AI technology with smart health solutions to provide personalized care and support.

ASUS Gen AI excels in two key areas: Natural Language Interaction and Personal Health Management.

1. Natural Language Interaction:

Zenbo Junior II leverages Gen AI to engage in natural, meaningful conversations, providing compassionate companionship that reduces loneliness and fosters trust. It understands and remembers conversation context, responds with empathy, and offers relevant support.

For example, Zenbo Junior II can answer health-related questions, such as symptoms of various conditions. These answers are for general health education purposes and do not constitute medical advice.

If a user expresses concern, it provides calming, reassuring responses and conveys empathy through 24 facial expressions, offering emotional connection and comfort.

2. Personal Health Management:

Zenbo Junior II bridges the gap between patients and healthcare providers through integrated personal health management services. It connects to Hospital Information Systems to access medication data, offering daily medication reminders and displays images of medications to prevent errors.

Powered by Gen AI, Zenbo analyzes daily health data against historical trends, alerting users to any abnormalities. Alerts and insights help users interpret their data trends and encourage consultation with medical professionals when necessary.

Using a B2B2C model, it enables hospitals to offer remote care by connecting consultation data and providing appointment guidance when users report discomfort during interactions.

Remote Care X Generative AI

During the pandemic, the demand for telehealth care increased, prompting ASUS to launch ASUS HealthHub, an all-in-one remote care solution that integrates hardware, measurement devices, cloud platforms, and software services. There are currently three software versions available; The B2B version, called HealthHub Hospital, is used by hospitals and healthcare institutions, allowing for quick data integration and video connections so healthcare professionals can address abnormal data in real-time. In 2024, a new B2B2C HealthHub Kiosk for enterprise/community and B2C HealthHub Home for individual use was introduced to purchase hardware devices for the home. The HealthHub supports various measurement devices to record physiological information such as blood pressure, blood glucose, blood oxygen, forehead temperature, weight, and body fat, to track the user's health.

In the past, people measuring their physiological data lacked the knowledge and advice from healthcare professionals, making it difficult to understand how to properly manage their health. The HealthHub team incorporated GenAI ChatGPT technology into the enterprise/community and home versions, launching the AI Health Assistant. This assistant analyzes personal health data and provides real-time, professional advice, enabling caregivers and those being cared for to manage health accordingly.

Users can input text or voice through the HealthHub device, and the AI Health Assistant will interact with them based on their measurement data, offering self-care suggestions for nutrition and measurement values, as well as sharing relevant disease knowledge. For example, if a user's blood pressure measurement is high, the system will display the normal blood pressure range, suggest the user rest, and then measure again, providing dietary advice based on the results.

For caregivers, if they are busy and unable to respond straightaway to the health needs of elders at home, they can also interact with the AI Health Assistant to inquire about health conditions, to provide peace of mind. Additionally, an AI-generated weekly health report will be sent to relatives and friends, offering health advice and charts to help users and caregivers review health status, understand health changes and trends, and encourage mutual concern for one another's health.

GenAI technology has accelerated HealthHub's goal of providing health advice, however, the biggest challenge is ensuring the AI Health Assistant does not provide medical diagnoses. The team has spent considerable effort calibrating GenAI to provide accurate health education information, integrating professional knowledge and technical texts to design prompts and specific Q&As. This ensures common questions are correctly handled, avoiding misunderstandings, and ensuring responses are accurate and satisfactory.

Smart Health Wearable Devices X Generative AI 

ASUS launched its first smart health product, ASUS VivoWatch, in 2016, primarily for consumer use. Its ECG application software and blood pressure application software have been certified by Taiwan's Ministry of Health and Welfare (TFDA), making it the first self-developed application software in Taiwan. Several medical centers in Taiwan have since integrated the VivoWatch into their wards and made it a part of their VIP health services to monitor patients’ vital signs.

Since that time, our team has continued to iterate and innovate on the product. In 2024, ASUS launched the VivoWatch 6, which is equipped with real-time continuous monitoring features to track users' physiological data 24/7. It features heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, sleep quality, surface temperature, ECG, and new body composition measurements. The goal is to provide appropriate preventive and management advice for monitoring and predicting potential health issues early.

ASUS VivoWatch 6 will also introduce an AI Coaching Platform in 2025 to provide personalized health recommendations and smart medical assistance. The platform enhances users' understanding of their data and health status by transforming abstract numbers into easy-to-understand information.

The coaching platform model analyzes users' data after only seven days, based on data and a questionnaire—such as blood pressure, maximum heart rate, resting heart rate, step count, exercise, and sleep data—to calculate health trends. Importantly, to protect user privacy, the collected data is processed on the VivoWatch's app to generate qualitative indicators, these are then anonymized and sent to the cloud AI model for automated personalized assessments. Users can also interact with the app’s Gen AI for health advice in a question-and-answer format, which does not rely on the patient’s data for advice.

The accuracy of the Gen AI model is achieved through continual calibration and adjustments. Users provide feedback on their condition through multiple-choice questions, the answers are used to fine-tune the Gen AI model’s ability to provide tailored prevention and health management plans.

We are continuing to develop new features for ASUS VivoWatch to provide preventive and health management advice for chronic disease monitoring and prediction, helping users identify potential health issues early. For example, the Afib (atrial fibrillation) detection function, which is currently undergoing TFDA certification, as well as the development of respiratory detection and sleep apnea interpretation functions. By easily monitoring at home, users can detect risks early and seek medical attention straight away.

A Gen AI-Led Healthcare Future 

Our ASUS healthcare teams are committed to further developing our ecosystem of AI-enabled products and services that empower patients and healthcare professionals. From the home, into the community, and to the healthcare institutions, we are working to create healthcare efficiency and improved outcomes to ensure a better, smarter, healthier future for all.

For more: Promoting the Integration of Smart Healthcare with Virtual and Real Elements: Empowering Future Medical Solutions with Generative AI, Part 1.