Meet Gabby!

Gabby is a Virtual Patient Advocate (VPA), which is a computerized, animated character designed to integrate best practices from provider–patient communication theory.

Gabby emulates the face-to-face conversational behavior of an emphatic clinician, including nonverbal communicative behavior such as gaze, posture, and hand gestures to deliver patient education messages tailored to individual needs, assess patient comprehension, and record progress.

VPAs are ideal for delivering PCC because they can potentially:

• Reach a large number of patients
• Alleviate clinician time restraints
• Control costs
• Have high patient acceptability

High patient acceptability is obtained through providing culturally and information appropriate content.