CHALLENGE

Traditional channels were no longer enough

For more than 130 years, the Croatian Public Health Board has played an important role in helping citizens stay healthy. But as communication habits changed, flyers, posters, and other traditional channels were no longer enough to reach people effectively.

The team needed a better way to deliver verified health information in a format that felt simple, immediate, and useful. They also needed to do it in a way that supported preventive medicine, not diagnosis, and that could guide people toward experts when a question went beyond the assistant’s scope.

There was also a practical challenge. Citizens expect answers when they need them, not only during office hours. That made availability, trust, and clear boundaries essential. The assistant had to be open all the time, but still stay firmly focused on prevention.

Mobile phones offered the answer. The team knew that almost 90 percent of people use mobile phones, and that WhatsApp is one of the most frequently used apps. That made WhatsApp the right place to bring public health guidance closer to citizens.

A preventive assistant, not a replacement for doctors

To solve this, the Croatian Public Health Board partnered with WoomAI and Infobip to create ZdrAVKO: an AI chatbot on WhatsApp, focused on improving citizens’ health literacy in the field of preventive health. The inspiration came from Gina, a conversational assistant that made specialized health information easy to access.

The team deliberately positioned ZdrAVKO as a preventive medicine assistant, not a doctor. That distinction mattered. The assistant helps people understand prevention, but it does not try to diagnose or replace medical professionals.

When a user asks something that falls outside its database, ZdrAVKO does not guess. Instead, it tells the user that it does not have that answer and directs them to the experts at the Croatian Institute for Public Health. That approach keeps the experience safe, trustworthy, and aligned with the public health mission.

Over time, the team built out the knowledge base to cover nearly 60 thematic areas, including chronic diseases, hypertension, malignant diseases, men’s health, and sports injury prevention. Citizens also started sending their questions to a dedicated email address, which helped the team keep improving the knowledge base based on real user needs.

The partnership also proved valuable on the technical side. When a global AI issue created problems, Infobip responded quickly and restored functionality, which gave the Croatian Public Health Board confidence that the service had the right support behind it.

More than 10,000 users and 160,000 interactions

The impact was immediate and clear. ZdrAVKO already has more than 10,000 users and over 160,000 interactions, showing that citizens are willing to engage with preventive health in a conversational format.

Public awareness grew as well. The assistant became widely recognized, helped by media coverage and the fact that people started talking about it directly. What began as a new digital experiment soon became a familiar public health touchpoint.

The content of the questions changed too. Instead of asking only about symptoms or treatment, users are increasingly focused on prevention. That shift is important because it shows that the assistant is helping shape healthier behavior, not just answering one-off questions.

The team now sees a path to even more useful services, including better access to practical information such as where people can find available appointments for tests and procedures. The long-term goal is to make prevention, guidance, and access to information even easier for citizens.

This customer story is published for general informational and promotional purposes only. Infobip’s role in relation to ZdrAVKO is limited to providing conversational technology and related technical services. Infobip has no direct contractual relationship with the customer and does not determine the purposes or essential means of the customer’s processing. The customer remains responsible, as applicable, for providing privacy notices, establishing a lawful basis, and responding to data subject requests. Infobip does not provide medical, clinical, diagnostic, therapeutic or other healthcare advice, and does not make or support medical or healthcare decisions. Any health-related content, guidance, outputs, claims, statements, data or results associated with ZdrAVKO or the project are the responsibility of the relevant customer and partner organizations, unless expressly stated otherwise, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Infobip. Reliance on the solution, its outputs, or this customer story is at the user’s own discretion and risk. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Infobip disclaims liability arising from reliance on this customer story or from use of ZdrAVKO.