Implementation of a Web-Based Chatbot to Guide Hospital Employees in Returning to Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Development and Before-and-After Evaluation.

Background: Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple policies and guidelines were issued and updated for health care personnel (HCP) for COVID-19 testing and returning to work after reporting symptoms, exposures, or infection. The 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 (RTW), which increased calls to Occupational Health Services (OHS), creating a need for other tools to guide HCP. Chatbots have been used as novel tools to facilitate immediate responses to patients' and employees' queries about COVID-19, assess symptoms, and guide individuals to appropriate care resources.