Toward Relationship-Centered Care with AI:
Designing for Human Connections in Healthcare
Designing for Human Connections in Healthcare
Thursday, April.16. 2026 @CHI 2026, Barcelona, Spain
This workshop introduces relationships as a design lens for AI in healthcare. Moving beyond a narrow focus on personalization and efficiency, it examines how AI systems shape relationships across patient–provider, patient–caregiver, caregiver–provider, and provider–provider contexts.
By foregrounding relational support as a vital yet underexplored dimension, the workshop seeks to generate actionable insights for developing AI systems that actively sustain and enrich human relationships in healthcare, ultimately advancing both care quality and health outcomes.
Join us to discuss challenges and solutions in AI systems for relationship-centered care!
BACKGROUND
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly integrated into healthcare, offering benefits such as greater efficiency, enhanced care delivery, and more personalized patient support. Relationship-centered care (RCC) is a holistic approach that emphasizes trust, respect, and meaningful connections within the interpersonal and social contexts of care, recognizing that care quality depends as much on relationships among patients, clinicians, and care networks. As RCC gains prominence, it is critical to consider how AI can be designed to strengthen, rather than weaken, human connections in healthcare.
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly integrated into healthcare, offering benefits such as greater efficiency, enhanced care delivery, and more personalized patient support. Relationship-centered care (RCC) is a holistic approach that emphasizes trust, respect, and meaningful connections within the interpersonal and social contexts of care, recognizing that care quality depends as much on relationships among patients, clinicians, and care networks. As RCC gains prominence, it is critical to consider how AI can be designed to strengthen, rather than weaken, human connections in healthcare.
WORKSHOP THEMES
This workshop is organized around three interrelated themes. These themes provide a framework for examining how AI can either strengthen or undermine trust, empathy, communication, and collaboration across different types of healthcare relationships.
Agents: the individuals or groups engaged in these relationships whose roles, needs, and perspectives often differ and at times come into tension. Example questions include: How do patients, caregivers, and providers perceive the role of AI in mediating their relationships? In what ways might AI exacerbate existing power imbalances, or alternatively, help redistribute voice and agency?
Context: the care settings in which interactions occur. These range from high-pressure acute care environments (e.g., emergency departments) to long-term, home-based care in informal settings (e.g., pediatric chronic care). Each context raises distinct relational dynamics and practical constraints. Discussion prompts include: How do different care contexts shape care relationships? What design considerations are needed to ensure AI supports, rather than disrupts, communication in these environments?
AI's position: the way an AI system is situated in relation to human–human interaction, whether as a supportive background tool, a visible collaborator, or even a perceived authority. Provocative questions include: What happens when AI is perceived as more trustworthy than a human counterpart? How might transparency, explainability, or invisibility of AI alter relationship-centered care?