New trial of AI phone assistant to monitor patients with long-term illness
· Medical Xpressby Samantha Martin, University of York
edited by Lisa Lock, reviewed by Andrew Zinin
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An AI assistant that conducts telephone consultations with patients is being trialed in the NHS to help clinicians monitor people with long-term illness. In the trial phase, the virtual assistant, called Dora Care, is designed to deliver safe and empathetic phone calls for people with osteoporosis—a bone-weakening condition that affects 3.5 million people in the U.K., particularly women and those over 50.
Fracture liaison services, which monitor these patients, have struggled with staffing shortages in many regions of the U.K., and with fracture treatment costing the NHS an estimated £4.5 billion each year, researchers at the University of York are investigating if the technology can safely support routine checkups.
Empathy
Dr. Kate Preston, from the University of York's Center for Assuring Autonomy, said, "One of the first challenges with this project is: Can AI technology be empathetic and have the desired effect on a patient who is perhaps feeling vulnerable or unwell?
"Alongside this issue is the question of how we make the technology safe enough to assist in the work of trained clinicians, providing the appropriate information to allow medical decisions to be made for the best possible care of their patients."
The two-year project uses generative AI to hold natural, spoken conversations with patients over the phone. To ensure the AI does not sound robotic or unsympathetic, linguistics experts first analyzed empathetic behaviors by human clinicians.
Linguistic behavior
Dr. Adam Brandt, senior lecturer in applied linguistics at Newcastle University, said, "We started with a question of "How might a patient experience being empathized with?" To do this, we explored how expert human clinicians display empathy, and we found it's not only what they say, but how they say it, and also when in a clinical conversation they do this.
"We then looked at how the same linguistic behaviors could be designed into Dora's conversations."
The trial is underway, following medical and ethical approval, and participation is voluntary, with AI calls being used in addition to rather than as a replacement for patients' regular NHS care.
Safety evidence
Safety specialists at the University of York's Center for Assuring Autonomy are designing a safety framework to monitor the technology during the trial.
Professor Ibrahim Habli, research director at the University of York's Center for Assuring Autonomy, said, "Any development and deployment of AI within a health care setting must be backed by robust safety evidence and assurance.
"We know from other projects in health care settings that safety and trust are key to clinicians feeling confident in deploying this technology, and having a clear understanding of how it can assist them in the decision-making process.
"AI systems that have been tried and tested, and indeed do the job they have been tasked with, can still be underutilized if the safety assurance is not clear to those who are using them."
Chronic disease
If successful, the technology could be expanded to help monitor other long-term illnesses, such as diabetes, heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
The project is led by technology firm Ufonia, in partnership with the University of York and Newcastle University. Dr. Aisling Higham, the project's chief investigator at Ufonia, said, "We are pushing the boundaries of how empathetic and safe autonomous clinical AI assistants can be used to support patients and clinicians."
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RheumatologyHealthy agingCommon illnesses & Prevention Provided by University of York Who's behind this story?
Lisa Lock
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