How Algorithmic Empathy Will Improve Health Care

Recently, health care providers have started using artificially intelligent chat bots to guide patients through normal intake processes and other functions normally performed by staff. The bots can ask patients about basic symptoms, verify health insurance, and follow up after visits. They have the great potential to increase access and reduce costs for health care providers. But one of the key challenges to their successful adoption is maintaining patient engagement with these software robots; how do you get patients to talk to software robots about sensitive medical data? It turns out the answer is empathy.

GYANT, a San Francisco based AI-enabled care navigation company, has found that the key to keeping a patient engaged when talking to a chat bot is the emotional appropriateness of the responses to the patient’s answers; something that is called algorithmic empathy. If a patient says they have cancer and an AI bot responds, “That’s too bad,” as if the patient had the flu, the patient will likely disengage and get frustrated. But if the AI bot gives a more emotionally appropriate response, the patient will be more likely to continue engaging.