Healthcare & life sciences
Your clinicians shouldn't rehearse bad news on a real family.
Doctors, nurses and pharma teams practice difficult news, upset patients and high-stakes professional conversations with an AI character who reacts the way people do. Every attempt is scored, so educators can see who's ready before it matters.
350k+
practice sessions completed
5–10 min
per conversation, around the rota
Communication is taught once, then practiced on patients
Clinical staff learn a framework for breaking bad news or handling complaints, often in a single session. The next time they use it, it's with a patient or a family on the worst day of their year.
Simulation works, but three things keep it from reaching everyone.
Simulated patients are scarce
Actor-led simulation is expensive to book and hard to schedule, so most staff get it once, if at all.
The rota wins
Taking clinicians off the ward for a half-day workshop rarely survives staffing pressures.
Complaints arrive after the fact
Patient feedback and complaints tell you a conversation went badly once it already has.
What a practice conversation actually looks like
Short enough to fit into a quiet part of a shift, and close enough to the real thing that staff feel the same weight.
01
You assign the conversation
From the library, or a scenario built around your own protocols, patient pathways or products.
02
They have it out loud
Real voice, real time, five to ten minutes. Alone, with no patient, relative or colleague watching.
03
The person reacts
To what was actually said. Rush through the facts and they stop taking anything in. Pause and check, and they can follow what comes next.
04
Score, then debrief
Five criteria with the evidence for each, then a conversation with the AI coach about what to do differently.
Runs in the browser, on a tablet, or in a VR headset. Nothing to install before the first session.
Overcome communication challenges with AI practice
Make communication your organization’s superpower. Equip your team with the skills needed to deal with even the most difficult communication scenarios with VirtualSpeech’s immersive roleplay platform.
Prepare healthcare professionals to communicate with their patients, help pharmaceutical teams deal with complex supply conversations, and more in an immersive, risk-free environment that leverages AI to create realistic scenarios.
Patients and families react to how they're told
This is the line between a roleplay and an e-learning module. The AI character has fears, questions and a way of hearing news, and the conversation goes wherever your clinician takes it.
Nobody can click their way to the right answer. They have to find the words, say them out loud, and stay with what comes back.
Example scenario
Delivering Difficult News: scan results to a patient's family
A patient's daughter has been waiting two days for her father's scan results. They show the illness has progressed.
Lead with the medical detail and she stops taking it in. The questions come later, in the corridor, with someone else.
Give a warning, pause, and ask what she already knows, and she can hear what comes next, and ask what she needs to.
Scored on preparing the person for bad news, pacing information, checking understanding, responding to emotion, and agreeing next steps.
Feedback a clinician can use on the next ward round
Not a percentage and a thumbs up. Every conversation is scored against named criteria, with what was actually said and what to try instead.
Breaking bad news is scored on preparation and pacing. An upset patient is scored on acknowledgement and plain language. The measure fits the moment.
Example: An upset patient, procedure postponed
Overall: 7.4
"You named her frustration about the wait before explaining the reason for it, and she let you finish."
"'The list ran over, so we've had to move you to Thursday' was clear. 'Theatre capacity' earlier on wasn't."
"'Someone will be in touch' left her waiting again. A name and a time would have kept the calm you'd just built."
Hesitations: 2
151 wpm
Clarity: 69%
...
Showing 3 of 5 scored criteria for this roleplay
Then they reflect, the way a good debrief works
Simulation educators know the debrief is where the learning happens. It's also the part that disappears first when there's no facilitator free.
After every roleplay, staff can debrief with Hugh, the AI Coach: what felt hard, what they'd change, and how to handle it next time. Or they can take a short Skills Coaching session on a named skill and apply it to a real case.
- Listening for the Bigger Picture
- Paraphrasing for Active Listening
- Reframing Confrontational Language
- How to Give Feedback (SBI), for ward and team leaders
Example debrief with the AI Coach
After: Delivering Difficult News
Hugh: You said the moment she went quiet was the hardest part. What did you do next?
Clinician: I moved on to the treatment options. I didn't want the silence to drag.
Hugh: What might have happened if you'd stayed in the silence a little longer?
Clinician: She'd probably have asked what she was actually worried about. Whether he's in pain.
Hugh: So for next time, what's one thing you'll do when the room goes quiet?
Built for care providers and life sciences teams
The same platform, practicing very different conversations.
Hospitals & care providers
Doctors, nurses and allied health
The conversations that shape patient experience, safety and complaints.
- Delivering difficult news to patients and families
- Handling upset or angry patients and relatives
- Patient handover between shifts and teams
- Explaining treatment options in plain language
- Raising a concern with a senior colleague
Pharma & life sciences
Field, medical and commercial teams
The professional conversations where credibility is won or lost.
- Conversations with healthcare professionals
- Handling questions about evidence and access
- Complex supply and account conversations
- Launch pitches and internal presentations
- Feedback and coaching for field managers
Bayer connected its own LLM, so feedback reflects its internal best practice.
Start with the library, then build your own
Written and scored by our learning designers. Assign them as they are, or use them as the starting point for scenarios specific to your organization.
Roleplays
Patient and family conversations
Patient, family and colleague conversations across clinical and care settings.
Delivering Difficult News
Doctor's Office setting
Exercise
Active listening
Hearing, retaining and recalling key information, the skill every handover depends on.
Goldilocks Exercise
Conference Call Listening
Roleplays
Leading a ward or team
For charge nurses, ward managers and field sales managers leading people for the first time.
Poor Employee Performance
Giving Feedback (SBI)
Struggling New Manager
Public speaking
Presenting with confidence
Upload the real slides and present to an audience that reacts, from a team briefing to a conference.
Conference Room
Lecture Hall
Boardroom
Built around your protocols and your patients
The library knows how a difficult conversation works. It doesn't know your handover protocol, your patient population, or the complaint theme your patient experience team flagged last quarter.
In Roleplay Studio, your educators build the scenario: the patient, relative or colleague, how they react, the room, the language, and the five criteria the conversation is scored against. If you teach SPIKES or SBAR, write the criteria in its language. Scenarios deploy in under five minutes.
Custom scenario, built by an admin
Handover to a busy night-shift nurse
| Colleague | Incoming nurse, twelve patients, already behind |
| Stance | Wants the short version. Interrupts. |
| Pushback | "Can you just tell me what I actually need to know?" |
| Room | Hallway |
| Language | Spanish |
| Scored on |
|
See it with a conversation your staff find hardest
Tell us the conversation your teams struggle with and we'll build it into a scenario on the call. Then we'll show you the feedback a learner gets and the data you'd see across a department.
What happens on the call
Discuss your training goals
Build your scenario live on the call
Rollout options and pricing
We reply within one working day.