Hospitals tap AI to nudge clinicians toward end-of-life conversations

The daily email that arrived in physician Samantha Wang's inbox at 8 a.m., just before morning rounds, contained a list of names and a warning: These patients are at high risk of dying within the next year. One name that turned up again and again belonged to a man in his 40s, who had been admitted to Stanford University's hospital the previous month with a serious viral respiratory infection. He was still much too ill to go home, but Wang was a bit surprised that the email had flagged him among her patients least likely to be alive in a year's time. This list of names was generated by a machine, an algorithm that had reached its conclusions by scanning the patients' medical records. The email was meant as something of a nudge, to encourage Wang to broach a delicate conversation with her patient about his goals, values, and wishes for his care should his condition worsen.