I have to say that I am really fascinated with AI, both the promise and the peril. The news stories are coming fast and furious, sometimes with terrifying reports and other times bringing forward some amazing things that AI can help manage. It is easy to imagine the ways that AI could make the daily life of clinicians better, but it may feel that these tools will be available only in the richer countries. That’s why I really enjoyed seeing this article which describes how AI is being used as an aid to areas that may have access to people trained to about the level of U.S physician assistants.
While the providers do have access to clinical guidelines and other resources, there are instances in which that is not enough and the cases are more complicated, and that’s where the AI tool comes in. The tool is called AI Consult, running in the background of visits, essentially shadowing the clinicians’ decisions, and prompting them only if they took questionable or inappropriate actions, such as over prescribing antibiotics. A study was conducted to document what impact it was having on helping clinicians to reduce errors, both in making diagnoses and in prescribing treatments. The group of clinicians using the AI Consult tool reduced errors in diagnosis by 16% and treatment errors by 13% among 20,000 patient visits compared to a similar number of visits conducted by other providers who weren’t using it. You can read more about the study here.
This type of partnership between trained individuals and an AI tool that can sit in the background as a tireless consultant, certainly seems to have potential. I think it is important for the providers to remain vigilant that AI can and will be wrong and times, but with that in mind, these advancing tools seem likely to aid in the daily work of a provider. The idea that in the not do distant future providers could have a tool that reviews charts, medications, drug-drug interactions, check to see that those labs/xrays were done, all in advance of the appointment with your patient. It could remind you about a lab test you want to review, could help make sure that you don’t prescribe a medication that will interact with others, help remind a patient to go get a test, the list goes on. I think we will see more of these types of reports coming out, and look out for an AI tool coming to a clinic near you soon!