AI Chatbots for Cancer Patients: Personalized Support & Navigation
Featuring: Vanessa Liu
In short
Vanessa Liu, whose husband had leukemia, is building CareBud — an AI chatbot designed to help cancer patients and caregivers find personalized information, navigate treatment options, and learn about clinical trials without getting lost in the flood of resources online. The session also gathers firsthand input from patients and caregivers about what they actually need from a tool like this, including honest concerns about misinformation, cost, and whether AI can be trusted for medical guidance.
- •When you're too exhausted to research, it's okay to be selective — protecting your limited energy is a real and valid priority, not giving up.
- •Tools like clinicaltrials.gov, Cancer Commons, Massive Bio, and CureMatch are resources other patients are already using to explore treatment options and clinical trials.
- •If you use any AI chatbot for cancer information, ask it to provide source references and citations — participants flagged this as important for telling good information from misinformation.
- •Online peer communities such as Inspire and disease-specific groups can connect you with patients in similar situations, which many people find as useful as formal information sources.
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Brad Power and Vanessa Liu January 17, 2024 “We knew there were a lot of information resources out there. But we were so tired. We got to a point where we had to really make the best use of our time. Were we willing to use the time to just chill, to enjoy a sip of coffee? Do we really want to do another round of research? Because the good time is so little. He was tired all the time.
” – Vanessa Liu “CareBud is an innovative, user-friendly AI-powered chatbot, designed to proactively navigate cancer patients and their caregivers through the intricacies of their treatment pathway, ensuring support at every step... This is our vision...
Meeting Summary
From their initial diagnosis, cancer patients and their caregivers are confronted with many challenges as they embark on their journey:
•Overwhelmed by healthcare navigation: Cancer patients and caregivers struggle with the overwhelming task of navigating complex healthcare systems and understanding diverse treatment options
•Lack of comprehensive AND ALSO tailored solutions: Absence of a unified platform that comprehensively caters to the specific needs of cancer patients, combining essential information and simplicity
•Fragmented collaboration in cancer care: Inadequate collaboration and information sharing among patients, healthcare professionals, and clinical trials result in delayed advancements in cancer care, inefficient use of resources, and potential missed opportunities for patient benefit. There are many apps that have been developed to help cancer patients and their caregivers navigate and automate some of these tasks. With the arrival of generative AI and chatbots, like ChatGPT (from OpenAI and Microsoft) and Bard (from Google), navigation apps for cancer patients are on the cusp of providing a next generation of service. Vanessa Liu is uniquely qualified to discuss the development of a chatbot-based app for cancer patients. She is passionately committed to supporting cancer patients and their loved ones. Drawing from her personal experience caring for her husband with leukemia, Vanessa emphasizes the need for improved communication and information resources for patients seeking advanced treatment after relapse. Her aim is to create an AI-powered chatbot that provides personalized and proactive support, CareBud. CareBud will guide cancer patients and their caregivers through the complexities of their treatment journey. It is at an early stage of design. They are working on a prototype. Vanessa plans to use GPT-4 as the base model for the minimum viable product (MVP) and use information from Cancer Patient Lab. The business model for the app includes multiple revenue streams through B2B and B2C subscriptions, partnerships, and education campaigns. CareBud will target advanced and newly diagnosed cancer patients with different needs and questions. The team is testing and evaluating the chatbot's accuracy and helpfulness, with a potential focus on lung cancer patients initially. What ideas did meeting participants share about their unmet needs and design preferences?
•Guide cancer patients to personalized resources.
•Build a supportive community.
•Address misinformation and scams in cancer diagnosis.
•Personalize interactions.
•Provide information on clinical trials.
•Provide source references and citations for opinions and advice.
•Be free or low-cost. How do patients currently get information to guide their decisions?
•Google, internet search
•Books
•Conversation with their physician
•ChatGPT
•Online support groups, like Malecare (for prostate cancer), Inspire, PatientsLikeMe
•Personally researched peer groups of similar patients
•Literature search, contact the principal investigator
•Clinicaltrials.gov
•Newsletters
•Cancer Commons
•Massive Bio
•CureMatch The information and opinions expressed on this website or platform, or during discussions and presentations (both verbal and written) are not intended as health care recommendations or medical advice by Cancer Patient Lab, its principals, presenters, participants, or representatives for any medical treatment, product, or course of action. You should always consult a doctor about your specific situation before pursuing any health care program, treatment, product or other course of action that might affect your health. Meeting Notes SUMMARY KEYWORDS vanessa, patients, oncologist, people, questions, gpt, cancer patient, users, information, treatment, mvp, utilize, data, resources, model, talking, cancer, conversations, answer, misinformation SPEAKERS Vanessa Liu (41%), Brad Power (19%), Jeffrey Dwyer (11%), Amit Gattani (8%), Rick Stanton (5%), Bapcha M (4%), Eric Hall (4%), David Plunkett (4%), Al Musella (3%) OUTLINE 1.Developing a chatbot-based app for cancer patients. (0:03) 2.Developing an AI chatbot for cancer patients. (3:17) 3.Using an AI chatbot for cancer patient support. (10:00) 4.Developing a chatbot for cancer patients. (17:50) 5.Using AI chatbots in healthcare with experts. (26:39) 6.Dealing with misinformation and scams in cancer diagnosis. (28:55) 7.Filtering misinformation and customizing AI models for medical use cases. (31:01) 8. data sanitization and landing zone for a customer-facing company. (32:33) 9.Developing an AI-powered chatbot for cancer patients. (36:30) 10.Cancer treatment research and patient support. (43:34) 11.Personalized cancer treatment research. (49:45) 12.Cancer treatment options and resources. (53:57) 13.Cancer treatment options and resources. (59:27) 14.Cancer diagnosis and treatment options. (1:02:21) SUMMARY
•Vanessa Liu discusses developing a chatbot-based app for cancer patients with Brad Power.
•Brad Power introduces Vanessa to the Cancer Patient Lab, offering feedback on her software.
•Vanessa shares her personal experience caring for husband with PCA, emphasizing appreciation for time and effort.
•Patients seek advanced treatment after relapse, citing lack of communication and information resources.
•Developing an AI chatbot to provide personalized and proactive cancer patient support.
•Using AI chatbot for cancer patient support. 10:00
•Patient advocate suggests chatbot to guide cancer patients to personalized resources, build community.
•Developing chatbot to provide treatment and medical-related information, avoiding giving medical advice.
•Vanessa uses GPT-4 as the base model for the MVP, prioritizing cancer patient Lab information.
•Vanessa discusses MVP and user attraction, and plans to gather feedback through surveys.
•Al Musella discusses his organization's chatbot for brain cancer patients, seeking partnership with Cancer Commons.
•CareBud’s business model aims to provide multiple revenue streams through B2B and B2C subscriptions, partnerships, and education campaigns.
•Patients and experts discussing medical treatments could become chatbot's knowledge base.
•Bapcha M discusses the importance of addressing misinformation and scams in the cancer community.
•Vanessa Branscombe discusses customizing large language models for specific use cases, such as cancer diagnosis.
•AI data sanitization and landing zone for customer-facing company. 32:33
•Amit Gattani discusses data sanitization and LLM training, focusing on the importance of understanding the landing zone of a customer-facing company.
•Amit Gattani seeks to understand the needs of his audience to provide personalized advice.
•Developing AI-powered chatbot for cancer patients. 36:30
•Vanessa explains that the chatbot will be targeted towards advanced and newly diagnosed cancer patients, as they have different needs and questions.
•The team is still testing and evaluating the chatbot's answers to ensure they are accurate and helpful, and may initially focus on lung cancer patients due to their majority in the cancer center sector.
•Brad Power and Rick Stanton are interested in helping Vanessa develop her MVP.
•Vanessa is working on developing her MVP, with a timeline of getting to a release point in the future.
•Vanessa seeks feedback from oncologists on their MVP release in early March.
•David Plunkett and Eric Hall discuss their experiences with online research for cancer treatment, including using ChatGPT and support groups.
•David Plunkett was disappointed by the lack of helpful resources from his medical organization's website, leading him to seek out online support groups instead.
•Jeffrey Dwyer connects with other prostate cancer patients through patient advocacy sites and personalized interactions.
•Jeffrey Dwyer, a prostate cancer survivor, shares his unconventional approach to researching and gathering information on prostate cancer treatments.
•Amit Gattani suggests multi-sourcing and crowdsourcing information on cancer clinical trials to build trust and navigate the complex landscape.
•Rick Stanton shares his experience of getting next therapy options from his oncologist, highlighting the importance of personalized advice and failed treatments.
•Rick Stanton is on a clinical trial for his prostate cancer and is not actively researching treatments, but will re-engage when the trial ends.
•David Plunkett wants a chat AI to provide references and citations for opinions and advice given.
•Brad Power shares his experience with cancer treatment and the resources he uses to stay informed, including Cancer Commons, Massive Bio, and CureMatch.
•He emphasizes the importance of having access to free or low-cost resources for cancer patients, particularly when it comes to clinical trials and drug combinations.
•Jeffrey Dwyer shares his experience with cancer diagnosis and treatment, feeling overwhelmed by the lack of clear information and conflicting opinions from medical professionals.
•He emphasizes the importance of finding a trustworthy oncologist and feeling empowered to make informed decisions about one's health.
•Jeffrey Dwyer expresses skepticism towards a patient-centric app, citing potential bias in standard of care and malpractice.
Full transcript
Brad Power I'm the co-founder and CEO of the Cancer Patient Lab. We're pleased to have Vanessa Liu with us to talk about CareBud and the work that she's doing to develop a chatbot-based app for helping cancer patients. I got to know Vanessa through Roger Royse. Roger is the leader in our Pancreatic Cancer Lab. He's a lawyer in Silicon Valley.
So he's in touch with a lot of startups and new ventures coming out of Silicon Valley, tech, and new ventures. Everyone at the Cancer Patient Lab is very supportive of startups. Startups are the way to disrupt the status quo. Anything we can do to help. Vanessa was kind enough to meet with us and to share what she's up to.
One of the things that I say to startups is that we have here in the Cancer Patient Lab a ready-made focus group to give guidance and feedback. As a startup is developing its software, we're happy to give them feedback on what's valuable and less valuable to us as cancer patients. Vanessa has license in this hour together with us to do whatever helps advance her approach.
I think she'll be asking for those who are willing to participate in some user experience. I did it last night. I worked with Vanessa and our colleague, Eileen, and went through some of the initial iterations they have of their software, and gave them feedback on what I thought – some ideas for making it better. She'll be asking all of you to do the same. Vanessa Liu 3:17 Thank you so much, Brad. Thank you everyone for joining this call.
It is a huge pleasure to be here as a caregiver myself, and I know how hard it is to go through the treatment. And I know most of you are still probably in the stage of going through treatments or maintenance, and you probably also work full time, so I really appreciate the effort and time. Indeed, I feel that just saying thank you is not enough to express my appreciation.
I just want to let you know I really really appreciate you giving your time and effort. I have some slides to introduce CareBud. Vanessa Liu 4:37 To give you a little background about me first: I was a caregiver to my husband, who was diagnosed with T-cell ALL back in 2018. (T-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow that progresses rapidly and creates immature blood cells, rather than mature ones.
"Lymphocytic" refers to the white blood cells called lymphocytes, which ALL affects. Acute lymphocytic leukemia is the most common type of cancer in children, and treatments result in a good chance for a cure. ) He was just 29. It was shocking news. We did our first round of treatment at Stanford – a stem cell transplant plus chemo. He reached remission. Then for the next three years, we were doing maintenance treatment, until he relapsed again.
At that point, we were told our best option may be just to seek more advanced treatment. So we participated in a clinical trial at MD Anderson. It was a really tough several years. Including the first treatment at Stanford, he had a lot of reactions and side effects. Because of our experience, and also what we witnessed through the treatment, we just feel there's a lot of room for improvement, especially when it comes to the patient side.
We were waiting to hear back from doctors about what could be the trigger for some of his specific reactions. We were always wondering if those side effects are those infections? But we were so tired. Are we willing to use the time to just chill, to really enjoy a sip of coffee? Because the good time is so little. He was tired all the time. That experience became the origin of the startup.
We’d like to come up with a tool that can be truly patient centric. Nowadays, with AI chatbots out there, why don't we utilize chatbots? The goal is to have the tool to provide comprehensive and also personalized information to patients and caregivers. Thus, it can lighten the burden on patients and caregivers when it comes to, such as information scraping. This is kind of our vision for an MVP.
Down the road, we'd also like to make this AI chatbot like a cancer patient personal assistant. So the chatbot can proactively lead patients to useful resources, remind patients about their medication, and increase care team engagement. Let the chatbot do the heavy lifting. You don't need to really bother thinking – what tasks do I need to do next – because the chatbot can actually lead you. Vanessa Liu 8:38 This is our vision.
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