Turn your head to the right and cough.
Posted on 04/29/2023 10:54:30 AM PDT by billorites
There has been widespread speculation about how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) assistants like ChatGPT could be used in medicine.
A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine led by Dr. John W. Ayers from the Qualcomm Institute within the University of California San Diego provides an early glimpse into the role that AI assistants could play in medicine. The study compared written responses from physicians and those from ChatGPT to real-world health questions. A panel of licensed health care professionals preferred ChatGPT's responses 79% of the time and rated ChatGPT's responses as higher quality and more empathetic.
"The opportunities for improving health care with AI are massive," said Ayers, who is also vice chief of innovation in the UC San Diego School of Medicine Division of Infectious Disease and Global Public Health. "AI-augmented care is the future of medicine." Is ChatGPT ready for health care?
In the new study, the research team set out to answer the question: Can ChatGPT respond accurately to questions patients send to their doctors? If yes, AI models could be integrated into health systems to improve physician responses to questions sent by patients and ease the ever-increasing burden on physicians.
"ChatGPT might be able to pass a medical licensing exam," said study co-author Dr. Davey Smith, a physician-scientist, co-director of the UC San Diego Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute and professor at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, "but directly answering patient questions accurately and empathetically is a different ballgame."
"The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated virtual health care adoption," added study co-author Dr. Eric Leas, a Qualcomm Institute affiliate and assistant professor in the UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science. "While this made accessing care easier for patients, physicians are burdened by a barrage of electronic patient messages seeking medical advice that have contributed to record-breaking levels of physician burnout." Designing a study to test ChatGPT in a health care setting
To obtain a large and diverse sample of health care questions and physician answers that did not contain identifiable personal information, the team turned to social media where millions of patients publicly post medical questions to which doctors respond: Reddit's AskDocs.
r/AskDocs is a subreddit with approximately 452,000 members who post medical questions and verified health care professionals submit answers. While anyone can respond to a question, moderators verify health care professionals' credentials and responses display the respondent's level of credentials. The result is a large and diverse set of patient medical questions and accompanying answers from licensed medical professionals.
While some may wonder if question-answer exchanges on social media are a fair test, team members noted that the exchanges were reflective of their clinical experience.
The team randomly sampled 195 exchanges from AskDocs where a verified physician responded to a public question. The team provided the original question to ChatGPT and asked it to author a response. A panel of three licensed health care professionals assessed each question and the corresponding responses and were blinded to whether the response originated from a physician or ChatGPT. They compared responses based on information quality and empathy, noting which one they preferred.
The panel of health care professional evaluators preferred ChatGPT responses to physician responses 79% of the time.
"ChatGPT messages responded with nuanced and accurate information that often addressed more aspects of the patient's questions than physician responses," said Jessica Kelley, a nurse practitioner with San Diego firm Human Longevity and study co-author.
Additionally, ChatGPT responses were rated significantly higher in quality than physician responses: good or very good quality responses were 3.6 times higher for ChatGPT than physicians (physicians 22.1% versus ChatGPT 78.5%). The responses were also more empathic: empathetic or very empathetic responses were 9.8 times higher for ChatGPT than for physicians (physicians 4.6% versus ChatGPT 45.1%).
"I never imagined saying this," added Dr. Aaron Goodman, an associate clinical professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine and study co-author, "but ChatGPT is a prescription I'd like to give to my inbox. The tool will transform the way I support my patients." Harnessing AI assistants for patient messages
"While our study pitted ChatGPT against physicians, the ultimate solution isn't throwing your doctor out altogether," said Dr.. Adam Poliak, an assistant professor of Computer Science at Bryn Mawr College and study co-author. "Instead, a physician harnessing ChatGPT is the answer for better and empathetic care."
"Our study is among the first to show how AI assistants can potentially solve real-world health care delivery problems," said Dr. Christopher Longhurst, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Digital Officer at UC San Diego Health. "These results suggest that tools like ChatGPT can efficiently draft high quality, personalized medical advice for review by clinicians, and we are beginning that process at UCSD Health."
Dr. Mike Hogarth, a physician-bioinformatician, co-director of the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute at UC San Diego, professor in the UC San Diego School of Medicine and study co-author, added, "It is important that integrating AI assistants into health care messaging be done in the context of a randomized controlled trial to judge how the use of AI assistants impact outcomes for both physicians and patients."
In addition to improving workflow, investments into AI assistant messaging could impact patient health and physician performance.
Dr. Mark Dredze, the John C Malone Associate Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins and study co-author, noted, "We could use these technologies to train doctors in patient-centered communication, eliminate health disparities suffered by minority populations who often seek health care via messaging, build new medical safety systems, and assist doctors by delivering higher quality and more efficient care."
Turn your head to the right and cough.
All I want is for a doctor to answer my question in a form I can understand. I nice personality is a plus, but not necessary. If they want to talk too fast and move on, I still manage to get all the time I need. I will not be brushed aside.
The panel of health care professional evaluators preferred ChatGPT responses to physician responses 79% of the time.
evaluators preferred. That we have them is wrong. The market place should speak.
what is the basis of preferring? They didn’t offend me?
It was basically just a test of the tech. There’s no official panel of evaluators, just some medicos they picked to read Reddit posts. lol Here’s the article the posted article used as a source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2804309
I think that ChatGPT could be very useful in helping people treat conditions at home, assuming they use it.
We know how often people use computers to self-treat, as opposed to just showing up in emergency, don’t we?
I do believe AI might do better than a human because it will have a database of symptoms for all kinds of diseases, even rare ones. I doubt a doctor can know it all, that is why there are specialists.
Bfl
After trying for more than three months to solve a medical problem I was having, ChatGPT had it resolved in about a half-hour.
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Are you serious?
How would regular people get access to a medical ChatGPT if they wanted to try it out?
Would ChatGBT recommend Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine and zinc and vitamin D and povidone iodine nasal spray for Covid-19 symptoms or tell you to just wait until you get sicker and then go to the hospital?
A program written by libtards, I’ll pass.
Yes, AI had a superior soothing voice, excellent eye contact, gave a reassuring Pat on the shoulder and then prayed with patient.
No wonder when you visit the Dr. they sit behind their computers entering data as you tell them your symptoms.
And when it gives out bad advice it can’t be sued.
I will believe it when ChatGPT tells us that the Covid vaccines were unsafe and ineffective.
Yes, AI had a superior soothing voice, excellent eye contact, gave a reassuring Pat on the shoulder and then prayed with patient.
Please have a seat, the computer will be with you shortly.
YES, so far! It has shared key kidney health related strategies without once pimping "dialysis" - unlike my (fired) renal doctor. (OH, and as a side note, UCHealth transplant called and said it will allow my Covid vax protest! Back on the list!)
With out interference from big government or big pharma
“A program written by libtards, I’ll pass”
Exactly. This AI stuff can well be written by commie progressives. The next iteration of it can be programmed to eliminate whatever class of “patients” our overlords tell it to eliminate. Take the prescription it sends to the pharmacy and you are on the sleeping road to eternity.
If a living physician were to do that, they have to worry about the patient’s relatives.
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