Artificial intelligence (AI) carries out its own space in the healthcare industry, raising important questions. Can AI actually make healthcare more human and compassionate? At first glance, it may seem strange. How can a machine (a bundle of cord and circuit) bring more support to healthcare? Nevertheless, AI is committed to improving patient care while keeping human empathy bright, including helping healthcare professionals and even dealing with burnout.
But how, exactly? Well, here are a few ways.
Patient-centered care is more important than ever
Let's start by talking about why patient-centered care has become so important in the health care world. Patient-centered care is more than just a buzzword that makes the healthcare provider seem more concerned about their patients. Rather, it is a philosophy that focuses on empathy, compassion and trust. Research shows that patients who feel understood and evaluated have improved health outcomes, increased satisfaction with care, and, importantly, increased emotional resilience when facing health challenges.
Unfortunately, as the demand for efficiency increases, the time for meaningful patient interactions tends to decrease. Healthcare professionals may want to connect on a deeper level, but they often feel that they are too thin to provide the compassion they really want to provide.
Barriers to caring care
In a stressful healthcare environment, time is tight, stressful, and providers often carry heavy management loads. Naturally, burnout is common, with a recent study reporting that around 63% of doctors and 56% of nurses are exhausted and overworked. When providers burn out and are considerate, personal care often takes the back seat (or sometimes even left on the side of the road).
How AI can support compassionate care
AI cannot replicate human empathy. But what we can do is create space for it by handling repetitive tasks, personalized treatment insights, and providing 24-hour support. All of this is to provide healthcare professionals with more time and energy to focus on meaningful patient interactions.
Below is a more detailed way that helps AI bring a more human touch to healthcare.
1. Reduce management responsibilities and provider burnout
Management tasks such as booking setup, billing, and record management can consume up to 70% of the provider's time. By taking over these duties, providers can spend less time on paperwork and increase their connections with patients. Research shows that reducing these burdens significantly reduces burnout and makes it easier for providers to maintain their mental capacity to engage in meaningful and compassionate interactions with patients.
2. Personalize care and optimize treatment plans
AI's data calculation power allows you to personalize treatment plans based on a patient's medical history, genetic information, and even previous treatment response. It helps you identify which medications and treatments are most effective for your individual. This targeted approach not only improves clinical outcomes by increasing treatment accuracy, but also increases patient sense of control and reduces the stress and emotional sacrifice of trial and error treatment.
3. Add empathy doses to patient provider communication
Although AI is not experiencing emotions, AI-powered tools like Chatbots can provide empathetic responses all day long. Many patients appreciate the opportunity to ask questions and get medication reminders rather than wait for inauguration time. In fact, some studies even show that in certain cases patients perceive these AI-driven interactions as more empathetic than conversations with rushed human providers.
4. Provide support for emotional well-being
AI-driven mental health apps, along with digital therapy tools, are essential resources for managing the emotional aspects of health care, especially for patients receiving high-stress treatment. Apps that provide mindfulness exercises or cognitive behavioral therapy interventions can give patients the support they need to deal with negative emotions such as anxiety and depression during visits to their providers. AI can also monitor happiness through self-reported data from wearable devices. If a patient shows signs of distress, they can alert the provider and reach out to them at the right time.
5. Empower patients with knowledge and agency
Education is the key to patient empowerment. AI can help shift care from hospital-centric to patient-centric models by providing accessible educational materials and allowing patients to understand their condition and treatment options. AI helps patients explore different scenarios, including the risks and benefits of different procedures, and make difficult decisions more manageable. This allows patients to make informed choices about their care and become active participants in that care.
Balance of AI and human interactions in healthcare
As AI continues to advance, healthcare needs to balance the use of technology with the need for human connection. AI can help deliver caring care, but human surveillance is necessary to ensure that these tools are used ethically and equitably. Transparency, collaboration between innovators and practitioners, and commitment to patient-centered principles are important for integrating AI in ways that enhance patient experience.
AI helps you take on paperwork, crunch your data and provide round-the-clock support. But at the end of the day it is a human touch and truly soothes healthcare. In the future, there is no need to choose between AI and human compassion. We can have both, work together to create efficient, personalized, and truly human-centric healthcare experiences.
