Becker’s Clinical Leadership: ‘That’s What ChatGPT Told Me’: How AI Is Entering the Exam Room
Becker’s Clinical Leadership recently interviewed cardiologist Yaron Elad, MD, chief medical informatics officer at Cedars-Sinai, about how patients are increasingly bringing AI-generated diagnoses, treatment ideas and questions to their doctor appointments.
Elad told Becker’s Clinical Leadership that patients are placing greater trust in AI than in conventional internet searches because AI tools generally draw from stronger, cited sources, whereas search engine results can easily direct patients to nonevidence-based information.
“I think patients probably view AI as a little bit more authoritative than they ever felt that their Google searches were before,” he said.
Elad told Becker’s Clinical Leadership some patients walk in with printouts of their AI queries, while others simply bring a list of generated questions to discuss.
“Usually, they’re apologetic about it, like, ‘Oh, you know, I’m not questioning you, but this is what ChatGPT said,’” he said.
Elad told Becker’s Clinical Leadership his bigger concern is accuracy: While doctors are trained to spot flawed AI information, patients might not recognize errors.
“I worry that patients may not be able to always discern when the advice they’re getting from AI is either inappropriate for their clinical situation, or worse, actually erroneous or a hallucination,” he said.
Elad told Becker’s Clinical Leadership he encourages patients to share their AI findings with their physicians.
“I don’t know of any clinician here who is offended by a patient doing their own research and coming in,” he said.
Some patients also are beginning to use personal AI to record appointments, which under California law requires a doctor’s consent. Elad told Becker’s Clinical Leadership he personally wouldn’t object, but he warned that AI notes often contain errors that need physician review to ensure accuracy.
“I would be careful if I was a patient using ambient AI to record a medical visit because it might misunderstand something or misconstrue something, and in that situation, you don’t have the benefit of your physician reviewing it,” he said.
Read the complete article from Becker's Clinical Leadership.