Research Conversation: Supporting End of Life Decision Making with Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Research Conversations are hosted by People in Health West of England. They are informal sessions which are designed to give researchers and public contributors a chance to interact. Public contributors are encouraged to ask questions, learn about and get involved in projects in their area.

Zoom link to join the meeting

Meeting ID: 971 6235 7104 | Passcode: 290787

About the event

End of life is one of the most expensive aspects of NHS care, and can be one of the least dignified. People’s aversion to discussing death means that many are unprepared for the realities of end of life, and do not make informed decisions that could benefit themselves personally and their loved ones. Many of these experiences cannot be quantified and instead this knowledge lives in the stories bereaved people share.

Using state of the art approaches to human-computer interaction and human-centred AI, we are planning a proposal to bring together a technical team who will co-design and co-develop an AI system with the End of Life Matters Health Innovation Team and end of life charities to support this common experience, which every single person will engage with in their lives. We hope to use AI to engage with these collected stories to provide bespoke support for people at the end of their lives, their loved ones, and their health and care providers. A usable prototype that has been trialled and tested will be produced, which will set us up for further NIHR funding in order to introduce this into real world hospice and palliative care practices. By developing this system with end users, we will producing cutting edge insights into human-AI interaction, participatory AI design in sensitive contexts, and technical contributions to AI for healthcare.

We would like to engage people in discussing: study design, recruitment, technology preferences, and what priorities the public think we should focus on.

About the speaker

Dr Aisling O’Kane is an Associate Professor (Reader) in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) for Health at University of Bristol and was Deputy Director of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Digital Health & Care.

Her research focuses on understanding how health and wellbeing technologies are used (and not used!) in the real world. She employs qualitative and participatory design approaches to studies of interactive technologies such as devices, apps, websites and wearables, and she is increasingly interested in how people interact with AI to support health, care and wellbeing.