There are two remedies for this. Those organizations offering digital caregivers could (and, in some cases, should) offer mobile devices and the Internet service to support them, as part of their service, to ensure constant connectivity. Even the additional costs of the device and service would amount to far less than the amount saved by a successful intervention. Consider the ability of a virtual healthcare assistant to check a patient’s vitals via a smartwatch and converse with a patient while sending an ambulance before a patient suffers a cardiac arrest, for example. The other remedy is for companies providing healthcare virtual assistants to build local functionality into their apps. This way, if a hosting device goes offline, the app can still log data to the device and provide limited communication functionality. This kind of offline connectivity is critical to always-on healthcare services—particularly for populations needing emergency care.
