Examining Cognitive Empathy Elements within AI Chatbots for Healthcare Systems

Empathy is an essential part of communication in healthcare. It is a multidimensional concept and the two key dimensions: emotional and cognitive empathy allow clinicians to understand a patient’s situation, reasoning, and feelings clearly (Mercer and Reynolds, 2002). As artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used in healthcare for many routine tasks, accurate diagnoses, and complex treatment plans, it is becoming more crucial to incorporate clinical empathy into patient-faced AI systems. Unless patients perceive that the AI is understanding their situation, the communication between patient and AI may not sustain efficiently. AI may not really exhibit any emotional empathy at present, but it has the capability to exhibit cognitive empathy by communicating how it can understand patients’ reasoning, perspectives, and point of view. In my dissertation, I examine this issue across three separate lab experiments and one interview study. At first, I developed AI Cognitive Empathy Scale (AICES) and tested all empathy (emotional and cognitive) components together in a simulated scenario against control for patient-AI interaction for diagnosis purposes. In the second experiment, I tested the empathy components separately against control in different simulated scenarios. I identified six cognitive empathy elements from the interview study with first-time mothers, two of these elements were unique from the past literature. In the final lab experiment, I tested different cognitive empathy components separately based on the results from the interview study in simulated scenarios to examine which element emerges as the most effective. Finally, I developed a conceptual model of cognitive empathy for patient-AI interaction connecting the past literature and the observations from my studies. Overall, cognitive empathy elements show promise to create a shared understanding in patients-AI communication that may lead to increased patient satisfaction and willingness to use AI systems for initial diagnosis purposes

Human-Machine Communication: Complete Volume. Volume 3. Diffusion of Human-Machine Communication During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic

This is the complete volume of HMC Volume 3. Diffusion of Human-Machine Communication During and After the COVID-19 Pandemi

Gender differences in understanding and acceptance of robot-assisted surgery

Robot-assisted surgery has numerous patient benefits compared to open surgery including smaller incisions, lower risk of infection, less post-operative pain, shorter hospital stays and a quicker return to the workforce. As such, it has become the first-choice surgical modality for several surgical procedures with the most common being prostatectomy and hysterectomy. However, research has identified that the perceptions of robot-assisted surgery among surgical patients and medical staff often do not accurately reflect the real-world situation. This study aimed to understand male and female perceptions of robot-assisted surgery with the objective of identifying the factors that might inhibit or facilitate the acceptance of robotic surgery. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 25 men/women from diverse social/ethnic backgrounds. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. The majority of female participants expressed concerns in relation to the safety and perception of new technology in surgery, whereas many male participants appeared to be unfazed by the notion of robotic surgery. There were clear differences in how males and females understood and conceptualised the robot-assisted surgical process. Whilst male participants tended to humanise the process, female participants saw it as de-humanising. There is still a discrepancy between the public perceptions of robotic surgery and the clinical reality perceived by healthcare professionals. The findings will educate medical staff and support the development of current informative techniques given to patients prior to surgery

Journal of Communication Pedagogy, Complete Volume 4, 2021

This is the complete volume 4 of the Journal of Communication Pedagogy

The Medical Authority of AI: A Study of AI-enabled Consumer-facing Health Technology

Recently, consumer-facing health technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based symptom checkers (AISCs) have sprung up in everyday healthcare practice. AISCs solicit symptom information from users and provide medical suggestions and possible diagnoses, a responsibility that people usually entrust with real-person authorities such as physicians and expert patients. Thus, the advent of AISCs begs a question of whether and how they transform the notion of medical authority in everyday healthcare practice. To answer this question, we conducted an interview study with thirty AISC users. We found that users assess the medical authority of AISCs using various factors including automated decisions and interaction design patterns of AISC apps, associations with established medical authorities like hospitals, and comparisons with other health technologies. We reveal how AISCs are used in healthcare delivery, discuss how AI transforms conventional understandings of medical authority, and derive implications for designing AI-enabled health technology

Assistive Care Robots

Assistive care robots have evolved rapidly in the last 25 years, bringing efficiency into the medical field. Purpose: Understand how assistive care robotics are presently helping in surgery, prosthetic and rehabilitation. Additionally, the effects they will have upon medical professionals within the next ten years. Methods: The team will research on past, present and future projects involving assistive care robotics. Posteriorly to the research, interviews were conducted with medical doctors, professors, and PhD researchers. Results: Assistive care robots are currently improving lives, and bringing efficiency to the medical field. Conclusions: Robots are improving lives of medical professionals and patients by serving as tools that enhance the ability of the users

Mobilization immediately after elective abdominal surgery : respiratory effects and patients´ and healthcare professionals´ experiences

To prevent postoperative complications after abdominal surgery, mobilization is highly recommended and suggested to start as soon as possible. However, few studies have investigated the respiratory effects of immediate postoperative mobilization among patients undergoing elective open or robot-assisted laparoscopic abdominal surgery. Nor have patients´ and healthcare professionals´ experiences of such an early mobilization procedure been investigated. Participants in study I to III were recruited from an out-patient pre-anesthesia clinic at Karolinska University Hospital Solna, Stockholm. For paper IV, the participants were recruited from the postoperative recovery unit at the same hospital. Paper I was a 3-armed RCT, consecutively including 214 patients who underwent elective open or robot-assistedlaparoscopic gynecological, urological, or endocrinological abdominal surgery with ananesthetic duration of >2 hours. Patients were randomized to mobilization only (to sit in a chair) (n = 76), mobilization (to sit in a chair) in combination with breathing exercises (n = 73), or to be controls (no treatment) (n = 65). The interventions started within 2 hours after arrival at the postoperative recovery unit. The results showed that compared with the controls, SpO2 and PaO2 improved for patients in the intervention groups. Paper II was a secondary analysis of data from the RCT including the patients who were assigned to and complied with the mobilization interventions (n = 137). Mobilization initiation time and duration of mobilization were investigated in relation to SpO2 and PaO2. The results indicated that mobilization within the first hour after surgery was not superior to being mobilized within the second hour regarding SpO2 and PaO2. Further, SpO2 and PaO2 were similar between the groups irrespective of whether the patients were mobilized for less than 30 minutes, between 30 and 90 minutes, or longer than 90 minutes. Paper III included face-to-face interviews with 23 patients who were randomized to one of the mobilization interventions. The overarching theme that emerged from the content analysis was “To do whatever it takes to get home earlier”, which was built on the three categories; “The impact of mobilization”, “To feel safe and be confident with the mobilization process”, and “Experiences and motivational factors”. Paper IV, was an interview study of 17 healthcare professionals who had been involved in mobilization of patients in the RCT. The interviews were analyzed with content analysis and resulted in the overarching theme “A changed mindset” which represented a turning point when the healthcare professionals observed that mobilization was safe and beneficial for the patients, and their safety concerns were reduced. The overall conclusion of this thesis was that mobilization immediately after abdominal surgery improved SpO2 and PaO2. Initiation time and duration of mobilization seemed to be of less importance. Patients found that it improved their physical and mental well-being. The healthcare professionals ‘experienced the postoperative recovery unit was a safe place for initiating mobilization as long as they had access to sufficient resources and a wellfunctioning multiprofessional team of nurses, assistant nurses and physiotherapists