Insight
Rethinking AI’s role in patient communication
Morgan Rose, Chief Science Officer at Ema
As generative AI grows more sophisticated, it is tempting to imagine a future where it replaces clinicians entirely. But that’s not the role we think it’s meant to play in healthcare.
Instead, we see AI as an emerging behind-the-scenes collaborator.
This type of AI use case supports clinicians by drafting messages, suggesting language, and helping manage patient communication at scale.
This kind of support doesn’t replace the clinician’s voice; it enhances it. And in women’s health, where trust, empathy, and clarity are non-negotiable, that enhancement isn’t just helpful, it’s essential.
Recent research from Stanford Medicine evaluated how large language models (LLMs) can support clinicians by drafting responses to patient portal messages.
The verdict?
AI didn’t necessarily save physicians time, but it did help make their responses longer, clearer, and more compassionate. For many clinicians, these drafts became helpful starting points rather than shortcuts.
This reflects a broader truth: AI doesn’t have to solve everything to be valuable.
Sometimes, its greatest strength is elevating the care that already exists by augmenting human empathy, not replacing it.
Patients Want Quality, but Trust is Fragile
A related study published in JAMA Network Open found that patients preferred the content of AI-generated messages to those written solely by clinicians.
But satisfaction dropped when they were told the messages were written by AI. In other words, the message mattered less than who they believed wrote it.
This finding underscores a deeper tension: the more transparent we are about AI, the more we risk undermining the trust we’re trying to build.
Yet transparency is ethically essential. So, how do we move forward?
Reframing Disclosure and Design
This is not a binary question of AI or no AI. It’s a design challenge.
The most effective approaches may involve co-branded messages, where clinicians remain central but AI support is acknowledged in a subtle, supportive way:
“This message was prepared by your care team with the help of digital tools to ensure timely and thoughtful communication.”
Clinicians must always remain in the loop, reviewing, personalising, and signing off on what patients receive. This isn’t about automation at the expense of connection.
It’s about using AI to support the fundamentals of good care: clear information, thoughtful tone, and meaningful context.
What This Means for FemTech
The stakes are high in women’s health. From fertility and birth control to postpartum support and menopause care, women want to feel heard, not routed.
That’s why the next wave of FemTech must go beyond automation. It should reflect the nuance of the care experience, using AI to empower—not replace—the human voice.
Tools like generative AI can surface medical insights, standardize follow-up, and even soften complex information.
But the best solutions will always be designed to serve the patient experience, not just efficiency metrics.
One UC San Diego study found that AI-assisted responses helped clinicians, who are often short on time, adopt a more empathetic tone.
And in a digital-first healthcare landscape, that might be the most powerful feature of all.
Looking Ahead
As AI becomes more embedded in portals, inboxes, and interfaces, we must ask what it can do and how it should behave.
This is the moment to co-design systems that center on care, trust, and transparency, especially for populations historically underserved by traditional healthcare models.
In the world of FemTech, this means creating AI that listens carefully, explains clearly, and never forgets the human on the other side of the screen.
Morgan Rose is a Certified Nurse Midwife, Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner, and International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant with over a decade of experience supporting women’s health. As the Chief Science Officer at Ema, Morgan combines her expertise with her passion for empowering women. She lives in New York City with her spunky daughter and their beloved dog.
Nighttime temperatures during pregnancy may be linked to a higher chance of an autism diagnosis in children, a recent study suggests.
The research tracked nearly 295,000 mother-child pairs in Southern California from 2001 to 2014 and linked warmer overnight temperatures with higher risk in early and late pregnancy.
Children of mothers exposed to higher than typical nighttime temperatures during weeks one to 10 of pregnancy had a 15 per cent higher risk of an autism diagnosis.
Exposure during weeks 30 to 37 was linked to a 13 per cent higher risk.
Lead author David Luglio, a post-doctoral fellow at Tulane University, said: “A key takeaway is that we identified specific windows when a mother and her developing child can be most affected by exposures to higher nighttime temperatures.
“This is critical and hopefully can help mothers prepare accordingly.”
The study is described as the first to examine how temperature may affect fetal neurodevelopment, the process by which a baby’s brain and nervous system form during pregnancy.
Extreme temperatures linked to increased risk were classified as above the 90th percentile, meaning 3.6°F hotter than average, and the 99th percentile, 5.6°F above average.
The association held even after researchers accounted for factors such as neighbourhood conditions, vegetation and fine-particle air pollution.
The study could not account for other factors such as access to air conditioning. Researchers did not find the same association with daytime temperatures, potentially because people spend more time away from home during the day.
“Heat waves are becoming more frequent, and people may only think of the dangers of daytime heat exposure,” said Mostafijur Rahman, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Tulane University.
“These results indicate a strong association between high nighttime temperatures during pregnancy and autism risk in children and show that we need to think about exposure to heat around the clock.”
The study did not examine how higher temperatures at night might affect prenatal development, though Luglio said it is possible that warmer nights disrupt sleep for pregnant mothers.
Previous research has suggested insufficient sleep during pregnancy may be linked to a higher risk of neurocognitive delays in children.
“Extreme heat exposure during pregnancy has been linked to a range of adverse health outcomes, including prenatal neurodevelopment delays and complications with an embryo’s development of a central nervous system,” Luglio said.
“The goal of our study was to specifically explore the link between prenatal heat exposure and autism diagnoses for the first time.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) welcomed a delegation of parliamentarians to its Geneva headquarters for a high-level dialogue on women’s health and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
The meeting on 20 January 2026 focused on women’s health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, noncommunicable diseases (long-term conditions such as cancer and diabetes) and global health cooperation.
The exchange was convened by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and the UNITE Parliamentarians Network for Global Health, bringing together parliamentarians from Albania, Germany, Georgia, Mexico, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden and Zimbabwe.
A central theme was the need to move beyond fragmented approaches to women’s health.
Dr Alia El-Yassir, WHO director for gender, equity and diversity, highlighted that outcomes are shaped by gender inequalities, social norms and structural barriers across the life course, requiring coordinated action across health systems.
Thirty years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a landmark framework adopted in 1995 to advance gender equality and women’s rights, Dr Anna Coates, WHO gender equality technical lead, noted that progress on women’s health remains uneven.
She called for health systems that are more gender-responsive and able to address women’s health holistically across the life course.
Parliamentarians stressed that health is inseparable from wider social and economic policies, and called for stronger links between evidence, legislation and measurable impact at country level.
The meeting also focused on sexual and reproductive health and rights, where parliamentarians expressed interest in engaging on issues that directly affect their constituents.
Dr Pascale Allotey, director of WHO’s Department of Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Child, Adolescent Health and Ageing, outlined WHO’s life-course approach to sexual and reproductive health and rights.
She highlighted how needs evolve from birth to older age and how these are shaped by social determinants, humanitarian crises and demographic trends.
Dr Allotey underscored the role of parliamentarians in advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights and the importance of continued engagement with WHO to support evidence-based policy-making.
The agenda highlighted cancer as a growing priority for women’s health and for health system sustainability. Dr Prebo Barango, lead for the Cervical Cancer Elimination Initiative, Dr Meghan Doherty, consultant for palliative care, and Santiago Milan, lead for the WHO Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicine, presented WHO’s integrated approach to cancer control.
Palliative care is treatment and support that aims to improve quality of life for people with serious illness by managing pain and other symptoms.
The discussion underlined the need for sustained political commitment and domestic investment to address noncommunicable diseases.
Parliamentarians shared national experiences showing the social and economic impacts of cancer on families and caregivers, reinforcing the importance of improving health literacy, reducing stigma and delivering people-centred care.
The meeting also addressed the state of global multilateralism.
Dr Jeremy Farrar, assistant director-general for health promotion, disease prevention and care, outlined how WHO has restructured to enhance efficiency, impact and capacity to support countries.
He reaffirmed WHO’s commitment to more systematic engagement with parliaments, recognising their role in shaping health policy, legislation and budgets.
The exchange concluded with a call for continued collaboration, including through partnerships with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and the UNITE Parliamentarians Network for Global Health, ahead of the UNITE Global Summit 2026 on 6–7 March in Manila, the Philippines.
Agilent has FDA approval for a test to identify ovarian cancer patients who may be eligible for immunotherapy.
Agilent’s PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx is the only FDA-approved companion diagnostic to help identify patients with epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal carcinoma whose tumours express PD-L1 and who may be eligible for treatment with KEYTRUDA, Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy.
A companion diagnostic is a test used alongside a specific treatment to show whether a patient is suitable for that therapy. PD-L1 is a protein on some cancer cells that helps tumours evade the immune system.
These cancers affect the reproductive system and the lining of the abdominal cavity.
The test enables pathologists to assess PD-L1 expression at diagnosis to support treatment decisions in a disease where options remain limited for many.
This is the seventh FDA-approved companion diagnostic indication for PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx for use with KEYTRUDA.
Nina Green, vice president and general manager of Agilent’s clinical diagnostics division, said: “Delivering effective precision oncology requires close collaboration between diagnostics and therapeutics, and this FDA approval reflects Agilent’s long-standing industry partnership in companion diagnostics.
“We are proud to enable pathologists to identify patients with EOC who may benefit from immunotherapy.
“As the first immuno-oncology approval for this disease, this milestone underscores our commitment to advancing precision medicine and expanding access to innovative cancer treatments worldwide.”
PD-L1 expression with this test was evaluated in the KEYNOTE-B96 clinical trial supporting its use to identify patients who may benefit from KEYTRUDA.
In the US, ovarian cancer caused approximately 12,730 deaths in 2025 and the five-year survival rate was 51.6 per cent between 2015 and 2021.
In addition to these cancer types, the test is indicated in the US to help identify patients with non-small cell lung cancer, oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, cervical cancer, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, triple-negative breast cancer and gastric or gastro-oesophageal junction adenocarcinoma who may benefit from treatment with KEYTRUDA.
The test was developed by Agilent with Merck as a companion diagnostic for KEYTRUDA.
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