Improving Patient Care Experiences
Expert says AI can bridge serious communication gaps
Seventy-nine percent of Americans say that they are concerned that AI will lead to dehumanization and weaker social ties, and with it, worse communication. Others worry that trust in communication will be compromised as more people will question and doubt whether they've reached a human or a bot masquerading as a human.
Bruno Nardone, global head of healthcare and life science at Quantiphi, happens to disagree with those understandable, emotional beliefs.
He contends something different is happening and will continue to happen, that being that the technology is “bolstering communication, improving health equity and combating the curse of knowledge (an expert's assumption that everyone shares their foundational level of knowledge),” Nardone says.
He provides an example to explain.
“A medical provider may need to discuss a situation with a colleague one moment and explain it to their patient with no medical background the next,” Nardone says. “With AI, the curse of knowledge can be essentially eliminated, bridging patient communication gaps, stemming from socioeconomic status and-or preferred language barriers, that previously added to the larger health equity crisis.”
Communication always has had problems in organizations as well as healthcare settings. Improvements have been needed and necessary. He infers, contrary to popular conclusions, that they are happening and there is greater humanization.
“AI bolsters communication by leveraging non-traditional health information to help determine what other needs a patient may have beyond healthcare, like access to public transportation or healthy fresh foods,” Nardone says.
He argues that overall care is getting better.
“Using generative AI, the care team may opt to alter discharge recommendations, connect them with community services or counsel them on government benefits that could help them personalize care plans tailored to their unique needs,” Nardone says.
The curse of knowledge takes place in society and can significantly and negatively impact communication, understanding and decision making.
AI can prevent or mitigate it.
“Ultimately, more providers are leveraging the power of generative AI to optimize overall healthcare communications and address communication breakdowns with their patients,” Nardone asserts. “Patients and providers can reserve more time to connect and deconstruct complex medical terminology, ask smart questions and roadmap treatment plans, effectively combating the ‘curse of knowledge’ that can exist during a patient-provider exchange.”
Because of the types of interactions that these exchanges are, this is vitally important.
“Often, too, these kinds of conversations are happening during high-stakes, emotionally-charged moments,” Nardone says. “Having a physician speak in medical jargon that is not well understood by the patient adds to that fear and confusion.”
That can lead to a dangerous lack of necessary communication, unclear explanations and learning that leads to troublesome lack of comprehension.
“Patients can also be too embarrassed to ask additional questions or even for minor clarification,” Nardone says. “Part of compassionate care should be communicating effectively with patients and their families in a language that is well-understood.”
The encouraging news, he says, is that, “Generative AI is bridging this gap.”
The technology has unique capabilities to serve patients and healthcare professionals.
“Gen AI systems can also help physicians tailor communications to the individual cognitive and education levels of their patients and even alert them when messaging might be victim to the curse of knowledge, based on the nuanced understanding of a patient’s profile,” Nardone explains.
This is a benefit and need that might not otherwise be available.
“Patients can seek a deeper understanding of their physicians' and care teams’ guidance by exploring treatment options or recommendations using layman's terms and have responses tuned based on the vernacular used in questions,” Nardone says. “Capabilities like these ultimately allow for tuning the message for the recipient and mitigating the risk of miscommunications that the curse of knowledge’ can create.”
He responds to his claim that, "Implementing generative AI can improve population health initiatives through better communication."
“We’re able to analyze incredible amounts of health data, identify patterns and predict outcomes that ultimately lead to health empowerment through knowledge,” Nardone says. “Specific to population health, GenAI can enable far more granular risk assessment, health trend prediction and personalized care planning than traditional approaches allow.”
In short, this will and does lead to “higher confidence to achieve desired outcomes,” he adds. “It also allows health systems to better determine where resources for high-risk populations should be best applied, whether new clinics, facilities or services should be built and what kind of community partnerships should be developed at the city or neighborhood level to support population management goals.”
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