Chat-based telehealth has been expanding with the resulting concern of the further deterioration of the clinician-patient relationship. As this relationship hinges on fostering a human connection and trust, understanding, and creating digital empathy for the written word becomes crucial. Currently most of the literature focuses on training and empathy over face-to-face video visits leaving a gap for training and education over chat. Chat-based telehealth leverages clinicians as well as artificial intelligence, so the use of empathetic statements and protocols can be employed. However, clinicians will still require an understanding and training in how to convey digital empathy over the written word. In this paper, we offer some tips for training on digital empathy over this modality.
Rodriguez JA, Saadi A, Schwamm LH, Bates DW, Samal L. Disparities in telehealth use among California patients with limited English proficiency. Health Aff. 2021;Mar;40(3):487–95.
2.
Ayers JW, Poliak A, Dredze M, Leas EC, Zhu Z, Kelley JB, et al. Comparing physician and artificial intelligence chatbot responses to patient questions posted to a public social media forum. JAMA Intern Med. 2023;183(6):589–96.
3.
Medium CL. 31 empathetic statements for when you don’t know what to say. 2017;
4.
Subbaraman N. ChatGPT will see you now: doctors using AI to answer patient questions. Wall Street Journal.
5.
McGreevey JD, William Hanson C, Koppel R. Clinical, legal, and ethical aspects of artificial intelligence–assisted conversational agents in health care. JAMA. 2020;11;324(6):552–3.
6.
Landry A, Lewiss RE. What a compassionate email culture looks like. Harvard Business Review [Internet. 2021;
7.
Interpreting Emoji—a language for enhancing communication in healthcare. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;1;6(6):e2318073–e2318073.
8.
Cleary B. The worst emojis to use in 2022: passive-aggressive thumbs-up only used by old people.
9.
Naik N, Hameed BMZ, Shetty DK, Swain D, Shah M, Paul R, et al. Legal and Ethical Consideration in Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: Who Takes Responsibility? Frontiers in Surgery. 9.
10.
Milota MM, van Thiel GJMW, van Delden JJM. Narrative medicine as a medical education tool: A systematic review. Medical Teacher. 2019;41(7):802–10.
11.
Lee G, Chang A, Pal A, Tran TA, Cui X, Quach T. Understanding and addressing the digital health literacy needs of low-income limited English proficient Asian American patients. Health Equity. 2022;4;6(1):494–9.
12.
Demaerschalk BM, Hollander JE, Krupinski E, Scott J, Albert D, Bobokalonova Z, et al. Quality Frameworks for Virtual Care: Expert Panel Recommendations. Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Innovations, Quality & Outcomes. 2023;7(1):31–44.
13.
Smoot J. In-Basket Teamwork: divide the work and multiply the success the registered nurse role in ambulatory clinic EHR in-basket management [Internet. 2020;
14.
Sakumoto M, Michelle Brosnan LVN, Gutierrez J. Improving care: Part II. Key Considerations for Virtual Team-Based Primary Care.
15.
Epic and Microsoft bring GPT-4 to EHRs [Internet. 2023;
16.
Alkureishi MA, Choo ZY, Lenti G, Castaneda J, Zhu M, Nunes K, et al. Clinician Perspectives on Telemedicine: Observational Cross-sectional Study. JMIR Human Factors. 8(3):e29690.
17.
Javaid S, DeRocher M. The Use of Email and Secure Messaging between Residents and Patients at St. Michael’s Family Medicine Residency Program. University of Toronto Journal of Public Health. 2(2).
18.
Holmgren AJ, Byron ME, Grouse CK, Adler-Milstein J. Association Between Billing Patient Portal Messages as e-Visits and Patient Messaging Volume. JAMA. 2023;329(4):339.
19.
Montenegro JLZ, da Costa CA, da Rosa Righi R. Survey of conversational agents in health. Expert Systems with Applications. 2019;129:56–67.
20.
Zhang X, Li L, Zhang Q, Le LH, Wu Y. Physician Empathy in Doctor-Patient Communication: A Systematic Review. Health Communication. 2024;39(5):1027–37.
21.
Terry C, Cain J. The Emerging Issue of Digital Empathy. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. 2016;80(4):58.
22.
Noronha C, Lo MC, Nikiforova T, Jones D, Nandiwada DR, Leung TI, et al. Telehealth Competencies in Medical Education: New Frontiers in Faculty Development and Learner Assessments. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2022;37(12):3168–73.
23.
Sakumoto M, Jelinek R, Joshi AU. Identification of gaps in graduate medical education telehealth training. THMT [Internet. 2021;
24.
Presence. 2023;
25.
Sakumoto M, Krug S. Enhancing digital empathy and reimagining the telehealth experience.
26.
A.T.A. 2018;
27.
Liu S, McCoy AB, Wright AP, Carew B, Genkins JZ, Huang SS, et al. Leveraging Large Language Models for Generating Responses to Patient Messages.
28.
Stepien KA, Baernstein A. Educating for empathy. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2006;21(5):524–30.
29.
Dolamore S, Lovell D, Collins H, Kline A. The role of empathy in organizational communication during times of crisis. Administrative Theory & Praxis. 2021;43(3):366–75.
30.
Sakumoto M, Khanna R. Using Technology to Enhance Communication. Medical Clinics of North America. 2022;106(4):705–14.
31.
A.A.M.C. Telehealth competencies [Internet. 2023;
32.
Wade-Vuturo AE, Mayberry LS, Osborn CY. Secure messaging and diabetes management: experiences and perspectives of patient portal users. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 2013;20(3):519–25.
33.
Haleem A, Javaid M, Singh RP, Suman R. Telemedicine for healthcare: Capabilities, features, barriers, and applications. Sensors International. 2021;2:100117.
34.
Kidd DC, Castano E. Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind. Science. 2013;342(6156):377–80.
35.
Mead E. 6 ways to create character sympathy & empathy in a story [Internet. Writer’s Edit. 2021;
Citation
Copyright
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The statements, opinions and data contained in the journal are solely those of the individual authors and contributors and not of the publisher and the editor(s). We stay neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
,
