There has been a lot of publicity recently regarding the capabilities of ChatGPT. It is considered the state-of-the-art of conversational AI, given its extensive training knowledge and strong understanding of natural language. One can ask ChatGPT encyclopedia questions such as “What is the population of the United States?” or domain-specific questions such as “What causes diabetes?” An interesting feature is that it can change the language style of its response, for example asking “Explain the causes of diabetes to a young child.”
Given ChatGPT’s powerful capabilities, people have been scrambling to find its potential killer applications in all industries. For example, many see it as a competitor to Google or Alexa or Siri.
In this article, we will discuss how ChatGPT can be used in healthcare applications. Let’s start with the review first Health applications for chatbots in general, which we discussed in the previous article. For each application, we will discuss if and how ChatGPT can be used.
1. Self-diagnosis
This is an area that was very hot a few years ago and has since cooled down a bit. There are several platforms that allow patients to enter their symptoms, such as Babylon Health, Healthily, or WebMD. These platforms use a combination of machine learning and manual expert input. They are programmed to ask the correct next question given the patient’s input so far. This is something that ChatGPT is not good at, i.e. ChatGPT is not good at asking clarifying questions to get the right additional information from the user. Moreover, it is difficult to compete with algorithms trained with extensive human input and refinement in a specialized domain.
To avoid potential liability or confusion, ChatGPT expressly states that it is unable to perform a symptom check by responding to “I am an AI language model and do not have the ability to diagnose medical conditions. It is recommended to consult a doctor or specialist for proper diagnosis and treatment“.
Verdict: Not applicable
2. Health cruise
The goal here is to help patients navigate the complex healthcare landscape; for example, find a doctor in their network, compare prices, or learn about their benefits. These chatbots are usually only available to healthcare system members, so they are not freely available on the web. The technology of these bots can range from simple multiple choice diagrams to deep learning models that are trained on existing customer service conversations.
ChatGPT is not trained to provide local information, such as searching for doctors in an area. Instead, it refers the patient to other resources.You can use the following resources to find a pediatrician in Irvine, CA: Online directories such as ZocDoc, Healthgrades and WebMD, your health insurance company’s website or customer service line,…»
On the other hand, ChatGPT can be used to answer general health questions such as “What is deductible in healthcare?” or “What is a co-pay?»
ChatGPT can be used to augment a specialized healthcare navigation chatbot, potentially handling general knowledge questions that a specialized chatbot cannot answer.
Verdict: Can complement existing chatbots to make them more responsive and cover more questions.
3. Health training and health
These chatbots attempt to engage patients in achieving a healthier lifestyle. For example, they can remind patients to exercise and eat healthy every day. Examples of such chatbots are Doppel and 1 Million to Prevent Diabetes. They can also assess the patient’s progress using existing clinical scales such as the PHQ9, a popular 9-question scale for assessing depression.
There is no easy way to program ChatGPT to provide health tips or monitor user progress over time. Furthermore, ChatGPT does not support the administration of questionnaires.
ChatGPT can be used to complement such bots. For example, you can ask ChatGPT if eating pasta is healthy or suggest ways to burn calories.
Verdict: Can complement existing chatbots to make them more responsive and cover more questions.
4. Healthcare Marketing
These bots typically collect information from leads (prospects/patients), provide them with information about practice services, or set up an appointment. Such bots are more common in niche professions such as dentists, chiropractors, plastic surgeons or physical therapy, which are professions that invest more in marketing.
The basic intuition here is that when patients are searching for services on Google, if the practice website has a chatbot that can engage the patient 24×7, it will make it more likely to attract that patient, especially with millennials, where instant gratification is key. key
ChatGPT wouldn’t be very useful here because it’s difficult to program it to have a purpose (eg collect a user’s email) and request information from users.
Verdict: Not applicable
In summary, we see that ChatGPT in its current form is not applicable for some types of healthcare AI and can be used to complement existing technologies in some other applications. As ChatGPT evolves and becomes more customizable, its applicability in healthcare may also increase.
by Vagelis H.