Balancing Promise and Caution: Reflections on AI in Serious Illness Care

The GiveCare team recently attended the insightful webinar "AI Utilization in Serious Illness Care 2025," hosted by C-TAC and the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California (CCCC). The webinar featured healthcare experts Jennifer Ballentine, CEO of CCCC, Stephen Lee, co-founder of IANA Care, and Dr. Ravi Parikh from Emory University. As creators of an AI-powered caregiving assistant, the insights shared in the session offered critical guidance and sparked thoughtful reflection on AI’s role in healthcare and caregiving.

Diverse Perspectives and Unified Curiosity

Healthcare professionals and leaders from organizations like Navian Hawaii, Advocate Health, and Ochsner Health gathered to explore AI’s potential to optimize operational efficiencies, support caregiver navigation, and improve patient communication. Interest ranged from AI-powered administrative solutions to more nuanced applications in patient care, advanced directives, and care navigation.

AI's Potential to Improve Care Delivery

Stephen Lee, co-founder of IANA Care, provided compelling examples of AI's capacity to simplify and enhance caregiving support. Demonstrating a solution that reduced care navigation tasks from hours to minutes, Lee highlighted AI’s potential to address significant capacity constraints in healthcare, aligning closely with GiveCare’s own product vision.

An Interesting Flashpoint: Human Empathy vs. AI Capacity

A particularly engaging moment came during a dialogue between Stephen Lee and Jennifer Ballentine, CEO of the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California. Lee expressed a strong conviction that while AI can significantly enhance caregiving through efficiency and decision-making support, it "should never replace human relationships or empathy," maintaining a clear boundary where AI should remain purely supportive.

Ballentine challenged this notion, cautioning against using absolute terms like "should never," emphasizing that people naturally form emotional connections—even with machines—and highlighted real-life scenarios where AI has provided meaningful emotional support. She cited examples from mental health therapy where AI interactions helped patients precisely because they didn't involve human judgment or perceived risk of emotional exposure.

This exchange illustrated a key tension in the AI caregiving space: How do we balance embracing AI’s potential for meaningful interaction without losing essential human qualities that caregivers provide?

Ethical Considerations and Trust

Participants like Nichole Davis, a patient advocate, and Dr. Ravi Parikh reiterated the importance of validating AI-driven solutions, cautioning against blind enthusiasm without evidence-based validation. Ethical concerns—such as ensuring unbiased, equitable AI that respects cultural differences—emerged as a central consideration. Marisette Hasan from CTAC emphasized that any AI approach in caregiving must intentionally incorporate equity to avoid perpetuating systemic disparities.

Navigating Adoption Challenges and Building Trust

Stephen Lee reminded attendees that the integration of AI demands transparency, reliability, and human oversight. Participants widely agreed that successfully deploying AI in caregiving hinges on building and maintaining trust with users—a critical insight guiding GiveCare's product development approach.

Final Reflections and Future Directions

The discussion concluded on an optimistic yet cautious note. Healthcare leaders recognized AI’s significant potential to enhance caregiving but also called for careful, intentional implementation grounded in clear ethical principles and strong human oversight. As Stephen Lee aptly concluded, "AI will never replace the human soul," underscoring the fundamental role human connection plays even in an AI-driven caregiving landscape.

For GiveCare, these insights reinforce our commitment to creating empathetic, responsible, and genuinely helpful AI solutions that amplify human care rather than replace it.

Did you attend this webinar? We'd love your perspective! Contact us at [email protected].