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Healthcare chatbot RFP checklist
The questions to put to a chatbot or conversational AI vendor before a hospital signs, covering data, escalation and what the bot must never do.
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Why it exists
The problem it solves
Most chatbot demonstrations are built to show what the bot can do well, not what it does when a conversation goes wrong. A hospital evaluating vendors on a polished demo alone tends to discover the gaps only after a patient has already had a bad experience with it, usually around escalation, data handling or a question the bot should never have tried to answer.
This checklist is the set of questions to put to a vendor before a contract is signed, organised around what actually causes chatbot deployments in healthcare to fail: unclear escalation to a human, data that leaves systems it should not, and a bot that answers questions it has no business answering. It assumes a text or voice bot handling enquiries, appointments or basic patient communication, not a clinical decision tool.
Inside
What you get
- A section of questions on what the bot is allowed to say and where that boundary is enforced
- A section on escalation: when a human takes over, and how fast
- A data handling section covering storage, retention and where patient data actually goes
- An integration section on CRM, appointment systems and the contact centre
- A section on testing and monitoring after launch, not just at handover
- A short list of red flags to listen for during a vendor demo
Audience
Who it’s for
For digital, CRM and growth leaders in Indian hospitals evaluating a chatbot or conversational AI vendor for patient-facing use.
Method
How to use it
- Send the questions to every shortlisted vendor in writing and compare the answers side by side, not just the demos.
- Push on any answer that is vague about escalation to a human or about where patient data goes.
- Ask for a live, unscripted demo covering at least one question the bot should refuse to answer.
- Confirm integration requirements with your CRM and contact centre team before the vendor conversation, not after.
- Agree what monitoring and reporting you expect after launch, and put it in the contract, not just the pitch.
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Questions about this checklist
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What the bot is allowed to say, how and when it escalates to a human, where patient data is stored and for how long, what it needs to integrate with, and how it is tested and monitored after launch. It ends with red flags to listen for during a vendor demo.
Service and administrative use: enquiries, appointment booking, basic information and routing to a human. It assumes the bot is not making or suggesting clinical decisions. A tool offering clinical advice needs a different, clinically led evaluation entirely.
No. It is vendor-neutral by design, a set of questions to put to whoever you are evaluating, not a product recommendation. The right answer to several of the questions will differ depending on your contact centre setup and CRM.
Judging the vendor mainly on the scripted demo. A bot performs well on the five questions it was built to answer. What decides whether patients trust it is what happens on the sixth question, whether it escalates cleanly to a human or guesses. Ask for that live, not scripted.
No figures and no commercial terms. It stays on the questions that decide whether the bot is safe and useful for patients: what it says, where data goes, how it escalates and how it is monitored. Pricing and contract negotiation are a separate conversation with your own procurement team.