Using artificial intelligence to help health care providers be more human might sound strange, but one nursing school says it’s working.
Nursing students at Creighton University are turning to AI to practice difficult conversations before they ever step into a patient’s room.
AI is already playing a major role in many areas of health care and medical research—from speeding up diagnoses to spotting trends in massive data sets.
Now, it’s helping train the next generation of caregivers.
Students can practice conversations and scenarios tailored to their curriculum and receive real-time feedback on their responses.
The chatbot can even detect overused phrases and tone, letting students know if their words were effective or could be more empathetic.
“It helped me replace filler words or things that I just say so easily, like ‘oh, I’m so sorry’ or ‘I understand what you’re going through,’” one student said. “Getting the feedback from the AI made me realize not everyone is going to like those phrases, and it’s not as effective as you would think with how common people say those types of things.”
Professor Melissa Taylor helped develop the chatbot.
One of the most important areas it covers is how to handle conversations around end-of-life care.
“We teach them different communication styles, different frameworks that they can use throughout the simulation to give them the tools to have these conversations in a structured way,” Taylor said. “To kind of set them up for success and have a plan to walk through something that’s really uncomfortable.”
Students say the AI practice will help them be more effective and compassionate with real-life patients.
Faculty at Creighton say the custom-coded program is more effective for training than general AI because it’s specifically grounded in medical frameworks and professional communication styles.