Researchers from the University of Tennessee Knoxville College of Nursing and the Precision Health and Environment cluster have been recognized with the Outstanding Author Award from Annals of Palliative Medicine for their invited review examining how artificial intelligence can improve care for people living with serious illnesses at home.
The award honors their article, Artificial Intelligence in Home-Based Serious Illness Care: A Scoping Review of Applications Supporting Quality Palliative Care, co-led by early-career faculty members Chunhong (Hong) Xiao and Avery Bechthold.
The Outstanding Author Award recognizes articles that make significant scholarly contributions to advancing palliative medicine and improving patient care. The honor highlights research with strong scientific rigor and meaningful potential to influence future practice.
Meeting Growing Home Care Needs
As more people live longer with serious illnesses like heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, family caregivers are increasingly responsible for supporting the management of complex medical needs at home.
Xiao, an expert in AI application and precision health in dementia care and the management of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia and Bechthold, whose work focuses on supporting adults with serious illness and their caregivers maintain quality life and meaningful living while navigating complex care needs, emphasize that thoughtfully-designed AI tools can enhance—rather than replace—health care.
Their review highlights how AI has significant potential to help caregivers recognize symptoms earlier, personalize care, improve communication, and reduce unnecessary hospital visits. During a time when there are critical shortages in health care providers, AI technologies can add an additional layer of support for patients and caregivers as they navigate daily challenges between medical visits.
Personalization Matters
One of the strongest findings from the review was the importance of personalization. AI tools were more likely to be trusted and used by patients and families when they were tailored to a person’s health needs, cultural background, language, and caregiving situation. Personalized reminders, culturally relevant educational resources, and adaptive communication features were important design features that helped patients and caregivers feel more confident managing care at home.
Recognizing Health Concerns Early
The review also found that AI can play an important role in helping families recognize and manage health concerns before they become emergencies.
“Predictive technologies, including wearable devices, smart home monitoring systems, AI-driven predictive models, decision-support tools, and conversational agents such as chatbots, can detect subtle changes in symptoms, activity levels and patterns, sleep, mobility, or daily routines that may signal emerging health concerns. These insights can support timely, personalized interventions by family caregivers and health care providers the opportunity to intervene before a patient’s condition worsens,” shared Xiao.
This proactive approach has the potential to improve aspects of quality of life while reducing unnecessary hospital visits.
Supporting Caregiver Well-Being
Xiao and colleagues also discovered that AI tools have the potential to support the emotional well-being of caregivers. Several emerging technologies incorporate design features that provide encouragement, offer practical guidance and advice, and create safe spaces to express stress and frustration.
Ensuring Access for All
The review also highlights accessibility as a critical consideration going forward. AI tools that integrate voice, text, and visual features and provide timely, personalized support based on individual needs could be easier to use, particularly for older adults and those less familiar with technology. Emerging platforms that securely connect mobile applications, wearable devices, and health information systems have the potential to facilitate real-time monitoring and more responsive care. However, barriers like internet access, affordability, digital literacy, and concerns about privacy remain. As these technologies continue to evolve, it is critical to ensure that innovations are designed to benefit everyone, not only those with access to advanced technologies and digital resources.
Looking Ahead
The authors note that most AI technologies for home-based serious illness care are still in the early stages of development. Future studies should focus on measuring meaningful patient and caregiver outcomes, reducing caregiver burden, developing scalable and accessible interventions, and ensuring seamless integration into real-world health care settings. Importantly, these advances must preserve compassionate, dignity, person-centered values that are fundamentals to high quality home care and palliative care.
“Artificial intelligence can never replace the human aspects at the heart of nursing, but it has tremendous potential to strengthen how we support patients and families in their homes,” said Bechthold.
This work brought together experts in nursing, palliative care, precision health, artificial intelligence and library sciences from multiple institutions, highlighting the interdisciplinary collaboration required to advance the future of health care.
For more information or to read the article click here.
CONTACT:
Kara Clark Cardwell ([email protected], 865-974-9498)