End-of-life conversations are difficult, even for health care professionals. It’s why one nursing school developed an AI chatbot to help students practice having these talks with patients and family.
Melissa Taylor is a registered nurse and faculty member at Creighton University in Phoenix. She helped develop the AI chatbot.
"So, we feed the chatbot information on the patient's background, kind of their life story, their family role, their professional role, and their new diagnosis. And in some of the scenarios, it's really how the diagnosis is progressing. And then also when they finally reach that end-of-life state," Taylor said.
Taylor says it’s difficult to teach how to have end-of-life conversations. And a student may not encounter it during their clinical rotation.
"It's a huge challenge for nurses to have these conversations with patients, especially because there's been minimal training on it historically. Unless you're working in an isolated hospice setting, but oftentimes these conversations come up in an acute facility in the hospital. And it's just not something that people have experienced," Taylor said.
She says the chatbot can ask questions and will adjust its response based on what the student says. It can also ask more emotional questions — like, "Will I live to see my grandbaby be born?"
The goal of these conversations is to increase confidence and prevent burnout in nurses.
Taylor says not teaching it is a disservice because, no matter where they work, end of life is something students will encounter.
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