More empathy from ChatGPT? Medical chatbot beats doctors in bedside manner
A panel of licensed health care professionals preferred ChatGPT’s responses nearly 80% of the time and rated the chatbot’s responses as higher quality and more empathetic, in a new JAMA study.
The use of telehealth soared during the pandemic. In the brave new world of health care, the next step for patients could be receiving information through artificial intelligence instead of from a live person.
“The opportunities for improving health care with AI are massive,” said John W. Ayers, Ph.D., of the Qualcomm Institute at University of California-San Diego. “AI-augmented care is the future of medicine.”
Ayers and other researchers looked at the role that AI could play in health care in a recent study published in JAMA Internal 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 nearly 80% of the time and rated ChatGPT’s responses as higher quality and more empathetic.
“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 and co-author of the study.
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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 for physicians. Empathetic or very empathetic responses were 9.8 times higher for ChatGPT than for physicians.
In addition to improving workflow, investments in AI assistant messaging could affect patient health and physician performance.
“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,” said Mark Dredze, Ph.D., an associate professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University.
Although the use of AI is just beginning, the possible applications are vast.
“I never imagined saying this, but ChatGPT is a prescription I’d like to give to my inbox,” said Dr. Aaron Goodman, an associate clinical professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “The tool will transform the way I support my patients.”