Stressed and short of time, health professionals can find it difficult to maintain an empathic bedside manner.Consultations are increasingly online.Doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers of all kinds are in short supply around the world. Even in better-paying countries such as the US, 30% of Americans don’t have a primary care doctor, and in the UK, 42% of general practitioners say they are likely to leave within five years, with one in ten planning to quit within a year.
In 79% of cases, the judges preferred the chatbot response. The chatbot responses tended to be longer, of higher quality, and more—10 times more likely to be rated empathic or very empathic than those from real doctors. In contrast, responses from real doctors were three times more likely to be rated as less than acceptable in quality.
Three hundred peer supporters were given some initial empathy training and then divided into two groups to respond to posters seeking support. One group had the option to use HAILEY to suggest changes to draft responses before hitting send. Responders could then accept the changes, further edit the response and/or get more feedback.with each passing day’ with an initial response of ‘Don’t worry. I’m there for you.