AI-Powered Chatbots in Medical Education: Potential Applications and Implications

Examining Health Data Privacy, HIPAA Compliance Risks of AI Chatbots

benefits of chatbots in healthcare

Overall, 38% think that AI in health and medicine would lead to better overall outcomes for patients. Slightly fewer (33%) think it would lead to worse outcomes and 27% think it would not have much effect. Concern over the pace of AI adoption in health care is widely shared across groups in the public, including those who are the most familiar with artificial intelligence technologies. On the positive side, a larger share of Americans think the use of AI in health and medicine would reduce rather than increase the number of mistakes made by health care providers (40% vs. 27%). A new Pew Research Center survey explores public views on artificial intelligence (AI) in health and medicine – an area where Americans may increasingly encounter technologies that do things like screen for skin cancer and even monitor a patient’s vital signs.

(PDF) A systematic review of chatbots in inclusive healthcare: insights from the last 5 years – ResearchGate

(PDF) A systematic review of chatbots in inclusive healthcare: insights from the last 5 years.

Posted: Thu, 06 Jun 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Advances in technology and increased access to the internet, and devices such as smartphones and computers has offered new opportunities to deliver accessible, individualised, and cost-effective behaviour change interventions. For example, Woebot, a mental health chatbot, has been shown to effectively deliver cognitive behavioral therapy to young adults with symptoms of depression and anxiety (Fitzpatrick, Darcy, and Vierhile, 2017). Such examples highlight the potential of chatbots to provide scalable and accessible mental health care. One of the most significant recent advancements was the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, introducing what’s commonly known as “generative AI” or “conversational AI” to the general population.

Will chatbots help or hamper medical education? Here is what humans (and chatbots) say

To meet the highest standards of care in medicine, an algorithm should not only provide an answer, but offer a correct one—clearly and effectively. Some 500 FDA-approved AI models are built with a singular function, for example, screening mammograms for signs of cancer and flagging-up telltale cases for priority review by human radiologists. However, many companies want to roll out AI tools as informational health devices that technically don’t make any diagnostic claims, pointing to the image recognition app Google Lens as an example. While chatbots can offer various advantages to both patients and providers, there are some challenges related to their use that must be considered. They found that the chatbots had three different conversational flows, with ‘guided conversation’ being the most popular. In this conversational flow, users can only reply using preset inputs provided through the interface.

benefits of chatbots in healthcare

Remember, while AI tools can provide useful estimates or support, they can make mistakes and should not replace professional medical or financial advice. The implementation of AI-powered chatbots significantly enhances the patient experience in triage. With accessible and user-friendly interfaces, multilingual support, and emotionally intelligent interactions, these virtual assistants create a patient-centric approach to healthcare. Healthcare organizations prioritizing patient satisfaction and engagement can leverage AI-powered chatbots to deliver exceptional care experiences, ultimately improving patient outcomes and loyalty.

Health care AI benefits

The results indicated that resistance intention mediated the relationship between functional barriers, psychological barriers, and resistance behavioral tendency, respectively. Furthermore, The relationship between negative prototype perceptions and resistance behavioral tendency was mediated by resistance intention and resistance willingness. Importantly, the present study found that negative prototypical perceptions were more predictive of resistance behavioral tendency than functional and psychological barriers. Moreover, according to the path coefficients of the findings, we found that functional barriers ChatGPT App of health chatbots have a greater positive impact on people’s resistance intention and behavior than psychological barriers. This conclusion is similar to that of prior studies, such as Kautish et al. (2023), who found that functional barriers to telemedicine apps play a more predictable role in users’ purchase resistance intentions. Furthermore, Our results demonstrate that people’s negative prototype perception regarding health chatbots, such as their being “dangerous” and “untrustworthy,” significantly influence their resistance intention, resistance willingness, and resistance behavioral tendency.

In the following sections, we outline the performance metrics for healthcare conversational models. Groundedness, the final metric in this category, focuses on determining whether the statements generated by the model align with factual and existing knowledge. Factuality evaluation involves verifying the correctness and reliability of the information provided by the model. This assessment requires examining the presence of true-causal relations among generated words30, which must be supported by evidence from reliable reference sources7,12. Hallucination issues in healthcare chatbots arise when responses appear factually accurate but lack a validity5,31,32,33.

Conversely, a low parameter count can limit the model’s knowledge acquisition and influence the values of these metrics. The Number of Parameters of the LLM model is a widely used metric that signifies the model’s size and complexity. A higher number of parameters indicates an increased capacity for processing and learning from training data and generating output responses. Reducing the number of parameters, which often leads to decreased memory usage and FLOPs, is likely to improve usability and latency, making the model more efficient and effective in practical applications. But using AI chatbots like ChatGPT to replace some provider messaging, especially in low-acuity diagnosing and triaging, will only work if patients trust the technology enough to use it.

Challenges of AI in healthcare

Who decides that an algorithm has shown enough promise to be approved for use in a medical setting? In 2019, Nemours Children’s Health System published a study in Translational Behavioral Medicine showing that a text messaging platform integrated with a chatbot helped adolescents remain engaged in a weight management program. While chatbots have experienced growing popularity over the last few decades, particularly since the advent of the smartphone, their origins can be traced back to the middle of the 20th century. The intersection of arts and neuroscience reveals transformative effects on health and learning, as discussed by Susan Magsamen in her neuroaesthetics research. Also, if the chatbot has to answer a flood of questions, it may be confused and start to give garbled answers.

Stanford University data scientist and dermatologist Roxana Daneshjou tells proto.life part of the problem is figuring out if the models even work. However, as I have reported, the app was also engaging in “race-norming” and amplifying race-based medical inaccuracies that could be dangerous to patients who are Black. As such, companies are free to develop and release these applications without going through a regulatory process that makes sure these apps actually work as intended. Consequently, addressing the issue of bias and ensuring fairness in healthcare AI chatbots necessitates a comprehensive approach.

benefits of chatbots in healthcare

There is more openness to the use of AI in a person’s own health care among some demographic groups, but discomfort remains the predominant sentiment. ChatGPT has made news by correctly answering enough sample questions from the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) to essentially pass the test. While benefits of chatbots in healthcare studies involving that and other tests (such as bar exams) demonstrate the ability of chatbots to quickly find and produce facts, they don’t mean that someone can use those tools to take such standardized exams. Schools might also use chatbots to give students practice in conversing with simulated patients.

“You have to have a human at the end somewhere,” said Kathleen Mazza, clinical informatics consultant at Northwell Health, during a panel session at the HIMSS24 Virtual Care Forum. Apriorit, a software development company that provides engineering services globally to tech companies. • Define the list of employees and user roles the chatbot can share sensitive information with.

Another US-representative survey of over 400 users suggested that laypeople appear to trust the use of chatbots for answering low-risk health questions (Nov et al., 2023). Initial findings suggest that ChatGPT can produce highly relevant and interpretable responses to medical questions about diagnosis and treatment (Hopkins et al., 2023). Despite the potential to assist ChatGPT in providing medical advice and timely diagnosis, concerns have been raised about the accuracy of responses and the continuing need for human oversight (Temsah et al., 2023). It is vital that researchers continue to investigate health-related interactions between chatbots and users to both limit the risk of harm and maximize the potential improvements to healthcare.

Assisting with diagnosis and treatment

Particularly, the authors emphasized that algorithmic bias, system vulnerability and clinical integration challenges were some of the most significant hurdles to successful generative AI deployment in medical settings. Because generative AI is trained on vast amounts of data to generate realistic, high-quality outputs in various mediums, its potential is significant. To date, researchers and healthcare organizations have investigated a plethora of use cases for the technology in administrative and clinical settings. Artificial intelligence is set to transform healthcare, bolstering both administrative and clinical workflows across the care continuum. As these technologies have rapidly advanced over the years, the pros and cons of AI use have become more apparent, leading to mixed perceptions of the tools among providers and patients. To facilitate effective evaluation and comparison of diverse healthcare chatbot models, the healthcare research team must meticulously consider all introduced configurable environments.

She has counseled hundreds of patients facing issues from pregnancy-related problems and infertility, and has been in charge of over 2,000 deliveries, striving always to achieve a normal delivery rather than operative. All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher. The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Stakeholders stressed the importance of identifying public health disparities that conversational AI can help mitigate.

  • However, monitoring and managing all the resources required is no small undertaking, and health systems are increasingly looking to data analytics solutions like AI to help.
  • In the realm of AI-driven communication, a fundamental challenge revolves around elucidating the models’ decision-making processes, a challenge often denoted as the “black box” problem (25).
  • And finally, patients may feel alienated from their primary care physician or self-diagnose once too often.

At these times, when patients have questions or are ready to process the information, medical chatbots can provide essential support, offering assistance around the clock. AI is helpful for medical chatbots because of its ability to analyze large amounts of data to provide more personalized responses to patient inquiries quickly, Tim Lawless, global health lead at digital consultancy Publicis Sapient, told PYMNTS. The strength and specificity of reactions from AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT increase with the amount of data fed into them. Therefore, he said, it is critical to effectively integrate patient data into generative systems, which can open the door to more powerful possibilities for their use as the technology evolves.

Healthcare Chatbot Market Analysis by Appointment Scheduling, Symptom Checking, and Others from 2024 to 2034

One of the most significant benefits of AI in healthcare is its potential to automate repetitive, time-consuming administrative tasks. We’ve already seen the power of AI to schedule patient follow-up appointments when it identifies urgent results on scans. Nonetheless, the problem of algorithmic bias is not solely restricted to the nature of the training data.

benefits of chatbots in healthcare

The research, however, found that chatbot effectiveness is only as good as the medical knowledge used in their programming and the quality of the user’s interactions. The global healthcare chatbot market is experiencing significant growth due to the escalating demand for virtual health assistance. The healthcare industry, in particular, is becoming a focal point for companies developing chatbot applications designed for clinicians and patients. In a study of a social media forum, most people asking healthcare questions preferred responses from an AI-powered chatbot over those from physicians, ranking the chatbot’s answers higher in quality and empathy.

For instance, DeepMind Health, a pioneering initiative backed by Google, has introduced Streams, a mobile tool infused with AI capabilities, including chatbots. Streams represents a departure from traditional patient management systems, harnessing advanced machine learning algorithms to enable swift evaluation of patient results. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. This immediacy empowers healthcare providers to promptly identify patients at elevated risk, facilitating timely interventions that can be pivotal in determining patient outcomes. However, the most recent advancements have propelled chatbots into critical roles related to patient engagement and emotional support services. Notably, chatbots like Woebot have emerged as valuable tools in the realm of mental health, engaging users in meaningful conversations and delivering cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-based interventions, as demonstrated by Alm and Nkomo (4).

Data management and extraction

Revenue cycle management still relies heavily on manual processes, but recent trends in AI adoption show that stakeholders are looking at the potential of advanced technologies for automation. Often, these tools incorporate some level of predictive analytics to inform engagement efforts or generate outputs. Outside of the research sphere, AI technologies are also seeing promising applications in patient engagement.

Companies like Biofourmis employ AI chatbots to analyze data from wearable biosensors, remotely monitoring heart failure patients, and preemptively notifying healthcare providers of potential adverse events before they manifest (12). Table 2 provides an overview of popular AI-powered Telehealth chatbot tools and their annual revenue. Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a potential game-changer in transforming modern healthcare including mental healthcare. AI in healthcare leverages machine learning algorithms, data analytics, and computational power to enhance various aspects of the healthcare industry (Bohr and Memarzadeh, 2020; Bajwa et al., 2021).

ML, in short, can assist in decision-making, manage workflow, and automate tasks in a timely and cost-effective manner. Also, deep learning added layers utilizing Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and data mining techniques that help identify data patterns. These are highly applicable in identifying key disease detection patterns among big datasets. These tools are highly applicable in healthcare systems for diagnosing, predicting, or classifying diseases [10]. Healthcare systems are complex and challenging for all stakeholders, but artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed various fields, including healthcare, with the potential to improve patient care and quality of life.

AI-powered chatbots are efficient and possess emotional intelligence and empathy, enhancing the patient experience during triage. These virtual assistants are trained to recognize and respond to patients’ emotional cues, providing compassionate and supportive interactions. Chatbots create a comforting and reassuring environment by offering a listening ear, validating patients’ concerns, reducing anxiety, and building trust.

Automation and AI have substantially improved laboratory efficiency in areas like blood cultures, susceptibility testing, and molecular platforms. This allows for a result within the first 24 to 48 h, facilitating the selection of suitable antibiotic treatment for patients with positive blood cultures [21, 26]. Consequently, incorporating AI in clinical microbiology laboratories can assist in choosing appropriate antibiotic treatment regimens, a critical factor in achieving high cure rates for various infectious diseases [21, 26].

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