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ChatGPT in Healthcare ?
While the tool is still in its early stages , hospital and health system IT and physician leaders believe the technology has significant potential .
What are the potential benefits and pitfalls ? Healthcare leaders are trying to determine where ChatGPT , the new technology chatbot , could be most helpful and where it may cause harm .
The artificial intelligence-powered chatbot is being touted as a tool that could “ transform ” healthcare , as it is said to be capable of mirroring intuitive human conversation . According to OpenAI , the tool ’ s creator , ChatGPT works by learning from human feedback . The tool is also said to be able to answer follow-up questions , admit its own mistakes , challenge incorrect premises , and reject inappropriate requests .
While the tool is still in its early stages , hospital and health system IT and physician leaders believe the technology has significant potential .
There are rare moments when you see a new technology capability and realise the future world will never be the same and will inevitably be transformed by this technology .
Still , there are plenty of questions surrounding how quickly the tool may start to be integrated into healthcare workflows and what its limits are . It is not a question of ‘ if ’ but rather ‘ how fast ’ and ‘ exactly how ’.
AI being helpful to physicians and minimising the administrative EHR burden on physicians would be very valuable given the well-documented physician electronic health record ( EHR ) burnout .
The technology ’ s strategy of constantly learning from what it is being asked could lead to privacy concerns in healthcare , as it could be used to deanonomize patient data .
ChatGPT also sounds authoritative even when it is wrong . That is a major problem for critical activities — like healthcare — where the providers using such a tool will need to constantly evaluate the validity , accuracy , and added value of what ’ s been suggested before acting on it .
Can ChatGPT be clinicians ’ Digital Assistant ? Several leaders have referenced clinical documentation as a key opportunity for ChatGPT to improve workflows .
The ability to exponentially extend a person ’ s reach and productivity is a truly exciting development . For the physician , as an example , the capability to use this type of generative AI to keep close tabs on an entire patient population as well as summarise individual encounter notes all while simultaneously crossexamining most academic literature and research studies to cite within visit documentation in near real time is just the type of major accelerator healthcare could benefit from .
The possibilities seem endless when looking at a beneficial digital assistant in almost any portion of the healthcare patient journey . From the very beginning of the journey , ChatGPT could assist with patient education , appointment scheduling , documentation , and general navigation . Prior to the visit , prior authorisation , appointment confirmations , and healthcare summaries could be prepared and delivered .
The tool could also help clinicians order tests , provide clinical decision support , and produce discharge instructions and follow-up .
Providers are suffering from �electronic data overload ” amid the proliferation of patient portals and other third-party digital health apps , so AI chatbots can alleviate some of this burden and work alongside clinicians as a “ virtual care assistant .”
It may take on administrative tasks such as
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