Researchers at UTHealth Houston were awarded an 18-month, $1.3 million grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation Board of Trustees to develop a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) platform to improve care amongst older adults.
By advancing conversational tools, also known as “chatbots”, older patients will be able to identify what they prioritize most for their health care before seeing their clinician. Using a structured AI-guided script, the conversational agent will aid patients in identifying their health priorities, and then produce a health priorities note to guide communication and decisions between the patient and their physician.
“Patient and caregivers are seldom given a chance to identify their health priorities with their clinicians,” shared primary investigator Aanand Naik, MD, professor and Nancy P. and Vincent F. Guinee, MD Distinguished Chair for the Department of Management, Policy, and Community Health at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. “Rarely are patients asked what their health goal is and whether a potential treatment can help them achieve that goal. There are time pressures, unfamiliarity, and discomfort that may limit having these types of conversations.”
For older adults managing multiple chronic health conditions, care can often feel fragmented. Patients typically see specialists, each with a different expertise: one may treat heart disease, another neurological condition, and a third chronic condition such as diabetes or arthritis. By establishing health priorities before their visit, patients are given ample time to reflect on their priorities before the visit and enable clinicians to guide treatment plans based on the patient’s desired outcomes.
Early findings from the platform suggest that “patient and their caregivers feel more engaged and listened to after participating in this health priorities identification process. Patients report less treatment burden and more alignment of their capubre with their priorities through this process,” shared Naik, who also serves as executive director for the UTHealth Houston Institute on Aging. In partnership with America’s Physician Groups, researchers from UTHealth Houston will test the pilot AI program amongst two Medicare managed care practices.
Through the AI conversational tool, researchers are dedicated to creating more collaborative and meaningful conversations between clinicians and patients to improve decision-making and the quality of care.
The grant was a part of an $11.4 million initiative from the John A. Hartford Foundation to advance age-friendly approaches across health care and public health.
Additional UTHealth Houston researchers on the award include Rafael Samper-Ternent, PhD, MD, associate professor in Management, Policy, and Community Health; Abdelaziz Alsharawy, PhD, assistant professor in Management Policy and Community Health; Dustan Brennan, senior director, Innovation, AI Solutions & Strategy; and Xiaoqian Jiang, PhD, professor with McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics. External investigators include Jennifer Arney Cuevas, PhD, with Texas A&M University, and Susan Huang, MD, chief medical officer with America’s Physician Groups.
