Despite significant technological advances in artificial intelligence, the future of digital health is increasingly focused on a human-centered approach that prioritizes personalization, empathy, and holistic care over pure automation. Most experts agree that the future points toward a blend of AI-driven insights and human expertise. AI excels at processing vast amounts of data to predict risks and suggest optimal treatments, while human healthcare professionals provide the essential elements of empathy, complex decision-making, and emotional support that technology cannot replicate.
This idea of “digital hybridization” was discussed on two recent episodes of The Big Unlock podcast, one featuring Chris Gallagher, M.D., Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Access TeleCare and the other Dr. Felicia Newhouse, Founder, AI-Powered Women. They both shared their insights on the evolution of AI and how virtual care is reshaping access and improving outcomes while at the same time enhancing patient engagement and allowing a more human-centered experience.
Towards a Human-Centered AI Model for Digital Well-Being
Ever since the earliest days of its inception there was this fear of AI replacing humans, or at least severely reducing much needed human interactions. As Felicia put it, “we all feel the need to belong.” These elements of human touch that we all crave are never going to go away, and they are critical as AI is becoming increasingly ubiquitous in all industries, but it is profoundly important in healthcare.
As a cardiologist, for Dr. Gallagher, the melding of technology and the human side of medicine was always there. “I always saw cardiology as field that combines technology and medicine together. It’s procedural based, and by nature it has always been cutting edge. You work in a lab that looked like something from the Starship Enterprise, screens everywhere and all sorts of incredible technology.”
He went on to explain that he also spent a good part of his career in rural health and that provided a stark contrast to that high-tech environment. Yet, he realized how he could use technology to bridge those worlds and bring quality care to those underserved communities, first with telehealth and now AI. He told show host Ritu Uberoy that he has now dedicated his career to this “virtual care space” managing underserved, untreated populations.
A Vision for Virtual Care
AI adoption in healthcare has always involved a lot of changing of hearts and minds, both on the provider and the patient side. To achieve his ultimate vision of virtual care, Chris says, “simplicity is key.”
“The key to our vision of virtual care, to getting more people to use it, was making it as user friendly as possible, not only on the medical practitioner’s side but also on the patient side. It had to be simplistic and never fail. In our inception days we used this analogy, the system had to be Fisher Price easy –you push a button, the cow goes, moo,’ everyone’s smiling and laughing. That was our ultimate goal to get it that push button easy.
Today, having provided that, Chris says he sees immense opportunity and possibilities. “Opportunities within our back office functions to simplify and streamline the business of medicine. We also see opportunities to improve the provider’s experience and minimize burnout. We have nearly 800 users for whom we have improved and simplified their experience when it comes to patient care.”
Then he told Ritu that he also sees opportunities to enhance patient care itself using new technology that helps connect them more to their doctors and nurses and not distance them from them as was once feared.
Can We Train Machines to Be More Empathetic?
Empathy and compassion need to be a cornerstone of human-centered healthcare. Can virtual health agents be taught to be empathetic? While current AI agents, and future “healthcare robots” may not experience empathy in the same way humans do, the ability to display empathetic behaviors can foster more positive and meaningful interactions between humans and machines.
Felica said that machines can process complexity, but only humans can really feel the complexities of true empathy. However, despite that distinction she says we can shape and mold and redefine the meaning of “artificial intelligence” to a kind of “sympathetic intelligence” as we continue to evolve human-centered AI design in the years to come.
Feminine Leadership Principals
Clinical studies have consistently shown that females are naturally more empathetic than males. So maybe what AI in healthcare needs is not so much a human touch, but a woman’s touch. Felicia certainly thinks so. “When we say feminine leadership principles, it doesn’t mean you have to be a woman. It just means that they’re grounded in kind of more feminine way of showing up as a leader, which is intuition and empathy and things like that.”
How Automation Can Unleash Human Potential
At the end of the day, rather than diminishing humans, AI can help us reach our full potential. As Felica put it, once we can fully use AI automate the mundane things that are holding us back, who knows what can be accomplished? Therin lies its true power she believes.
“We can leverage these technologies to essentially automate and offload the aspects of yourself that are holding you back so you can become a much more human centered and whole leader and whole human that has more to offer to the world around you. We can partner with AI in that capacity because if you think of AI as kind of an emerging species that we’re parenting. Right now, it’s in the toddler stage, and it’s up to us to raise it right. AI has its own brilliance to offer, and we have our own brilliance to offer. We have to look at our future as kind of a hybrid species that’s collaborating together.”