{"id":57156,"date":"2026-06-12T11:16:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T15:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine\/?p=57156"},"modified":"2026-06-12T11:16:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T15:16:49","slug":"the-empathy-algorithm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine\/inquiring-minds\/change-agents\/the-empathy-algorithm\/","title":{"rendered":"The Empathy Algorithm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In his sophomore year, biomedical&nbsp;engineering major&nbsp;Bikram Bains, Engr \u201926, was&nbsp;determined to find a meaningful&nbsp;volunteer opportunity at&nbsp;The Johns Hopkins Hospital.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Enter Chaplain Elizabeth&nbsp;Tracey in the medical intensive&nbsp;care unit (MICU), who created&nbsp;the <a href=\"https:\/\/tag.jhu.edu\/tag-work\/tims\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/tag.jhu.edu\/tag-work\/tims\/\">This is <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/tag.jhu.edu\/tag-work\/tims\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/tag.jhu.edu\/tag-work\/tims\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">My<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/tag.jhu.edu\/tag-work\/tims\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/tag.jhu.edu\/tag-work\/tims\/\"> Story<\/a> (TIMS)&nbsp;Program during the COVID-19&nbsp;pandemic. She wanted to use&nbsp;AI to streamline the program\u2019s&nbsp;audio editing process, which&nbsp;involved condensing detailed&nbsp;interviews into brief, soulful&nbsp;windows into a patient\u2019s life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the last six years, Tracey&nbsp;and her team have been interviewing&nbsp;patients or their loved&nbsp;ones (if they are unable to&nbsp;verbally communicate) to get&nbsp;to know them on a personal&nbsp;level. These interviews seek to&nbsp;capture the patient\u2019s identity&nbsp;by asking about sources of&nbsp;joy, essential care information&nbsp;for the medical team,&nbsp;and sources of peace. The&nbsp;responses typically generate&nbsp;human interest insights\u2014about cherished pets, beloved&nbsp;grandchildren, interesting&nbsp;hobbies\u2014that can help&nbsp;clinicians connect with the&nbsp;patient. These connections&nbsp;can transform the health care&nbsp;experience, helping the patient&nbsp;to feel seen and understood&nbsp;while encouraging the&nbsp;provider to deliver care with&nbsp;more empathy and intention.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The interviews are edited&nbsp;and integrated into the&nbsp;patient\u2019s medical records so&nbsp;that the entire care team can&nbsp;listen to them at any time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe TIMS Program interested&nbsp;me because of its focus on&nbsp;improving human-centered&nbsp;care even in the most intense&nbsp;medical situations,\u201d says&nbsp;Bains. \u201cThe unique opportunity&nbsp;to use my technical&nbsp;skills in AI to improve a&nbsp;process while maintaining a&nbsp;personal approach to care&nbsp;was very appealing to me.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bains recruited his roommates&nbsp;Sampath Rapuri&nbsp;and Edgar Robitaille\u2014both&nbsp;biomedical engineering and&nbsp;computer science double&nbsp;majors\u2014to join him. The students&nbsp;developed an AI model&nbsp;that can automate the editing&nbsp;process of interviews and recognize&nbsp;subtle details that can&nbsp;be highlighted, such as a love&nbsp;of dogs, to help a clinician&nbsp;and patient connect. They&nbsp;were also challenged with&nbsp;training the model to remove&nbsp;disfluencies such as \u201cum.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The team\u2019s AI model supports&nbsp;a larger effort to improve TIMS&nbsp;efficiency by using an app.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAfter seeing the benefits of&nbsp;TIMS recording both for the&nbsp;medical team and patients&nbsp;and families, it was clear&nbsp;that we needed an app to&nbsp;streamline and standardize&nbsp;the process. Bains, Rapuri,&nbsp;and Robitaille have developed&nbsp;the process to edit TIMS recordings&nbsp;into their final form&nbsp;as part of the app\u2019s functionality,\u201d&nbsp;Tracey says. \u201cWithout&nbsp;their contribution, we would&nbsp;not have a functional app.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cThe unique opportunity to use my technical skills in AI to improve a process while maintaining a personal approach to care was very appealing to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2014 Bikram Bains<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>By uniting empathy and AI in&nbsp;their work, the students are working toward improved&nbsp;efficiency while keeping the&nbsp;program\u2019s focus on the \u201cpersonal&nbsp;touch.\u201d In fact, their AI&nbsp;model can edit the interviews&nbsp;to a comparable level&nbsp;to that achieved by a medical&nbsp;student trained for one hour&nbsp;by Tracey and her team.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt is not hard to get an&nbsp;output from an AI model,&nbsp;but it is hard to get the right&nbsp;output, especially when you&nbsp;have such sensitive information.&nbsp;You must have a&nbsp;lot of thoughtfulness, and&nbsp;we had high standards on&nbsp;what we wanted the output&nbsp;to be, which took a lot of&nbsp;experimenting,\u201d Bains says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fresh off a publication in&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/medinform.jmir.org\/2026\/1\/e80205\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/medinform.jmir.org\/2026\/1\/e80205\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">JMIR Medical Informatics<\/a><\/em>,&nbsp;the team is now finalizing a&nbsp;second paper analyzing the&nbsp;application of their model&nbsp;throughout the hospital.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe have grown as engineers&nbsp;through this opportunity&nbsp;to work on a project&nbsp;that impacts real patients&nbsp;and care providers at the&nbsp;hospital. Having that instant&nbsp;feedback with a direct&nbsp;pipeline from the classroom&nbsp;to the clinic is extremely&nbsp;gratifying,\u201d says Rapuri.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That pipeline was supported&nbsp;by a network of Johns&nbsp;Hopkins resources. Utilizing&nbsp;HopGPT (formerly the Hopkins&nbsp;AI Lab) allowed them&nbsp;to run their sophisticated&nbsp;models, while a Catalyst&nbsp;Award from the Johns&nbsp;Hopkins Office for Undergraduate&nbsp;Research funded&nbsp;the computational resources&nbsp;needed to turn the team\u2019s&nbsp;ideas into working solutions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With this infrastructure in&nbsp;place, the trio was able to&nbsp;adapt as quickly as the field&nbsp;itself. \u201cAs AI evolved over&nbsp;the last two years, we kept our ear to the ground and stayed informed on advances that could improve our project,\u201d says Bains.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This hands-on experience&nbsp;has done more than solve a&nbsp;technical challenge; it has&nbsp;shaped the students\u2019 futures.&nbsp;Now seniors, all three plan to&nbsp;attend medical school after&nbsp;graduation with an interest&nbsp;in specializing in critical care.&nbsp;They hope to stay involved&nbsp;with TIMS even from afar and&nbsp;pass the project to a new cohort&nbsp;of students to continue.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2014 CATHERINE GRAHAM AND HOLLY PAESCH<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Illustration by Helena Pallar\u00e9s<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Students\u00a0developed an AI model\u00a0that can automate the editing\u00a0process of interviews and recognize\u00a0subtle details to help a clinician\u00a0and patient connect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":57159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"issue":[105],"class_list":["post-57156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-change-agents","issue-spring-2026"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Empathy Algorithm - Johns Hopkins Engineering Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jacob Heisler is pursuing a master\u2019s degree in electrical engineering with a focus on solid-state devices. 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