Has your family doctor started using AI during your visits?
Maybe a better question these days is, do you even have a family doctor?
Ontario’s Auditor General recently decided that doctors are failing patients by using AI. She found loads of mistakes and poorly designed health care plans in the AI written assessments of patient appointments. Well, of course she did. Because she didn’t take into account how this tool is used.
My physician has been using artificial intelligence for a long time now. I know this, because she asks for my permission to enable it at every visit. It doesn’t replace her at all. It helps in several ways.
The program “listens” to our conversation and because it already knows my health history, it comes up with possible diagnoses and solutions. It makes notes while my doctor and I chat. Instead of pecking at the computer, my doctor is fully focused on me. She sees on my face whether I’m upset or if something is no big deal. She can’t do that with her nose at a monitor, taking notes.
No Note-Taker is Infallible
The AI sometimes makes errors. But it doesn’t get the final word. It makes suggestions and comes up with possibilties and treatment plans. The doctor and other medical personnel still go over it to make a human determination about the patient’s case.
One doctor tells the Toronto Star that he can see four more patients per day since using this tool. For a strained health-care system, twenty more doctor visits per week is significant.
I don’t want artificial intelligence making art. That’s a human activity. But if it can assist someone who’s overloaded with responsibilities and help more people, I’m on board. I’ve seen with my own eyes how it’s helping my physician and she loves the efficiency of using it.
Statistics show that humans make more errors than AI in medical note-taking. That’s because, as the Star article points out, people get tired and stressed whereas AI does not. I want my doctor to listen to me rather than take dictation. Let the tech-bot do that for her. In my view, this is what AI is for.