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 — one that supported preventive medicine rather than diagnosis, and that could guide people toward experts when a question went beyond the assistant’s scope.

Citizens expect answers when they need them, not only during office hours. That made availability, trust, and clear boundaries essential.

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

Watch how the idea behind ZdrAVKO was born: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUxkYHIcnDI

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 assistant on WhatsApp focused on improving citizens’ health literacy in the field of preventive health.

ZdrAVKO was deliberately positioned as a preventive medicine assistant, not a doctor. The assistant helps people understand prevention, but does not diagnose or replace medical professionals. When a user asks something that falls outside its knowledge base, ZdrAVKO does not guess — it directs the user to the experts at the Croatian Institute for Public Health.

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

Watch the full ZdrAVKO story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zHUS3vO3iI

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 quickly. The assistant became widely recognized, helped by media coverage and word of mouth. What began as a 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 — showing that the assistant is helping shape healthier behavior, not just answering one-off questions.

The long-term goal is to make prevention, guidance, and access to health information even easier for every citizen.

Read the full ZdrAVKO story on Infobip: https://www.infobip.com/customer/zdravko