“About the Series: As current students, most of us have explored ChatGPT in work or study, or out of curiosity, mostly to facilitate some dirty work to increase productivity. As a CSE Career Captain, ChatGPT really helps a lot with my industry research work, acting like an AI expert across various industries.
For this article I reviewed the impact that AI has had on the healthcare industry!”
– Ruolan Li, MA’24
Check out the fourth installation in this CSE Connect Series about how ChatGPT is influencing the various industries of interest to Brandeis International Business School Students!
How AI has Impacted the Healthcare Industry
The emergence of artificial intelligence has led to a notable transformation across different industries, healthcare being one of them. The undeniable capacity of AI to transform healthcare by enhancing diagnostics, aiding clinical decision-making, and advancing patient education has become evident. One noteworthy AI model that has garnered attention for its healthcare potential is ChatGPT.
Uses of ChatGPT in Medicine and Wellness
An article from Forbes, Revolutionizing Healthcare: The Top 14 Uses Of ChatGPT In Medicine And Wellness, mentions the potential uses of ChatGPT in the healthcare industry. ChatGPT is an ideal tool for healthcare applications, such as virtual assistants for telemedicine, clinical decision support, medical record keeping, medical translation, medication management, disease surveillance, medical writing and documentation, clinical trial recruitment, creating symptom checkers, patient triage, drug information, medical education, mental health support, and remote patient monitoring.
Researchers Are Using AI to Make Healthcare Better
Paging Dr. ChatGPT: How These Penn Researchers Are Using AI to Make Healthcare Better from Penn Medicine News indicates that researchers find ChatGPT can be an educational and resource allocation tool for patients. In the study, ChatGPT can answer questions ranging from easier questions to medically complex ones. Researchers also find AI may help patients identify conditions where immediate medical care is called for and, conversely, may allow patients to try simple home and over-the-counter remedies for less concerning or dangerous conditions. Since this technology is still in its infancy, ChatGPT is not able to provide precise answers all the time.
ChatGPT Plays a Role in Mental Health Care
ChatGPT And Depression: Exploring AI’s Role In Mental Health Care from Forbes tells a story about how GPT technologies help treat depression. AI systems can provide personalized care in an accessible context. It provides convenience for patients that there is no need to schedule an appointment or deal with insurance information for simple medical issues that could be solved at home on a patient’s computer or phone. At this early stage of technology, ChatGPT makes mistakes, and we must be prudent when using it for mental health care.
The Technology Still Struggles
The article ChatGPT struggles to answer medical questions, new research finds from CNN suggests that ChatGPT might not be a cure-all for answers to medical questions. Researchers at Long Island University found that ChatGPT provided accurate responses to only about 10 of 39 questions. And the answers to the other 29 questions were incomplete or inaccurate, which would put a patient at risk. ChatGPT was also found to fabricate references for answers with numerous errors and problems, which is unreliable even if it shows appropriately formatted citations for its answers.
AI is Shaping Healthcare Career
Researchers found that ChatGPT can be a useful tool in literature review, data analysis, academic writing and review, according to the article ChatGPT and medicine: how AI language models are shaping the future and health related careers. The coding capabilities of ChatGPT make it an excellent tool for troubleshooting and writing code to aid in statistical analysis. This opens the opportunity not only for statisticians to optimize their workflow and output, but for adept clinicians to perform their own preliminary analyses. In general, AI helps workers focus more on their healthcare professional analysis and improve working efficiency.
Reflection
While the potential applications of ChatGPT in healthcare are vast and promising, it’s crucial to approach its integration with caution. As evidenced by its varied performance in answering medical questions, the technology is still in its developmental stages and has room for improvement. As we navigate the evolving landscape of AI in healthcare, it is essential to acknowledge both its capabilities and limitations, striving for a harmonious collaboration between technology and medical expertise to revolutionize patient care truly.
Written by Ruolan Li, MA’24, and run through ChatGPT for grammar and spelling, this is the installation in the CSE Connect Series about how ChatGPT is influencing the various industries of interest to Brandeis International Business School Students.
