{"id":113996,"date":"2026-07-21T22:11:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/113996\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T22:11:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:11:23","slug":"can-ai-help-doctors-have-hard-conversations-with-sick-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/113996\/","title":{"rendered":"Can AI Help Doctors Have Hard Conversations With Sick Patients?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a patient is admitted to the emergency room of a hospital with a life-threatening medical condition, the first order of business is to get that patient to a stable state. After that happens, it is standard medical practice for doctors to initiate what\u2019s known as a serious illness conversation<\/a>, which gives both the physician and patient an opportunity to discuss goals about care, treatment and end-of-life wishes before a medical crisis makes those conversations impossible.<\/p>\n

But given the high pressure and time-limited nature of ERs, those conversations aren\u2019t happening, according to Smit Desai<\/a>, an assistant professor in the College of Arts, Media and Design at Northeastern University.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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According to research from Desai and others, just 37% of seriously ill older adults report having had a serious illness conversation with a physician, and when they do occur, they\u2019re often too late: on average, about a month before death.<\/p>\n

That can leave patients receiving care that doesn\u2019t reflect their wishes or undergoing treatments they otherwise might have declined, which in some instances can prolong pain and suffering. Those are the kinds of situations doctors are trying to avoid, Desai said.<\/p>\n

Desai and others have now developed a way for artificial intelligence to help fill in the gaps in end-of-life care. In research published this month in the Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction<\/a>, the team of researchers found that large language models, or LLMs, can potentially act as a surrogate in facilitating those serious illness conversations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"SmitSmit Desai, an assistant professor in the College of Arts, Media and Design at Northeastern University, runs the Conversational Human-AI Interactions Lab. Photo by Alyssa Stone\/Northeastern University\t\t<\/p>\n

The study grew out of work being conducted in Desai\u2019s Conversational Human-AI Interactions Lab<\/a>. In previously published work<\/a>, the researchers interviewed 11 emergency clinicians and mapped the entire workflow surrounding those conversations, from how the physicians identify the patients to have those chats with to how they prepare for the discussion to how they document the outcome in the electronic health record.<\/p>\n

The interviews confirmed their suspicions about many of the pressures facing emergency physicians, who often spend just four to 10 minutes with each patient between reviewing medical records, making diagnoses and pursuing treatment plans, Desai said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Hasibur Rahman<\/a>, a Northeastern University researcher who worked on the study noted that clinicians are already stretched thin, and instead of replacing them, AI could be \u201ca supportive layer\u201d by helping to reduce the administrative burdens. \u201cI think we are perfectly positioned to use AI to support clinicians at the hospital,\u201d Rahman said. \u201cAI tools could create more time and mental space for clinicians to foster genuine human empathy in those emotionally sensitive settings.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the new study, Desai, Rahman and their colleagues looked to assess an AI voice assistant that they had developed for fields such as healthcare and education. They wanted to see how users perceive and respond to the conversational system and how to improve the underlying AI models that make those conversations possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They found that when the AI assistant had \u201cstructured conversations\u201d with older patients about their end-of-life wishes, it was largely to the patients\u2019 satisfaction. Of the 55 emergency patients who participated in the pilot study, 49 successfully completed an AI-guided serious illness conversation, and 46 found the system acceptable, meaning the participants found the mediated chats appropriate and were comfortable taking part, according to the study.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The preliminary data is promising, Desai said, because serious illness conversations honor patients\u2019 values and make them feel heard and respected. They should be taking place inside emergency departments with regular frequency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the same time, the study also highlights that there are both technical and ethical problems that must be solved before the technology can be deployed in hospital settings more broadly. Desai noted that there was one case in which the voice assistant hallucinated a response, which he described as \u201cnot very nice\u201d and resulted in the researchers having to terminate the conversation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very strange case of hallucination,\u201d he said. \u201cWe looked into that, and we were able to solve the problem as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dakuo Wang<\/a>, an associate professor with joint appointments in Khoury College of Computer Sciences and the College of Arts, Media and Design, who also helped conduct the study, described AI\u2019s emerging role in hospital setting as an inevitability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But despite the rapid advance and enthusiasm, Wang estimates it will take \u201canother decade or so\u201d for hospitals and physicians to actually see AI transformations play out. Even though electronic medical records are ubiquitous now, it took decades for hospitals to adopt those systems after the internet revolution took hold in the 1990s, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal here isn\u2019t to have AI replace doctors,\u201d said Desai, who added that the tech can serve to streamline end-of-life care and ultimately free physicians to spend more time with patients.<\/p>\n

Tanner Stening is an assistant news editor at Northeastern Global News. Email him at t.stening@northeastern.edu. Follow him on X\/Twitter @tstening90<\/a>.<\/p>\n