Researchers have indicated that chatbots could be used to diagnose patients in a bid to reduce waiting times in emergency departments.
It comes after a study found ChatGPT, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), “worked well” in generating a list of diagnoses for patients and suggesting the most likely option.
Researchers from the Netherlands entered the records of 30 patients who visited an emergency department in 2022, as well as anonymized medical notes, into ChatGPT versions 3.5 and 4.0.
The AI analysis was compared to that of two doctors who made a diagnosis based on the same information, with and without laboratory data.
When laboratory data was included, doctors got the correct answer on their top five differential diagnoses in 87% of cases, compared to 97% for ChatGPT 3.5 and 87% for ChatGPT 4.0.
Chatbots could be used to diagnose patients in a bid to reduce waiting times in emergency departments (File Photo)
There was a 60% overlap between physicians’ differential diagnoses and ChatGPT.
The team said that while ChatGPT was “capable of suggesting medical diagnoses as a human doctor would,” more work is needed before it is applied in the real world.
The study was led by Dr. Hidde ten Berg and Dr. Steef Kurstjens from Jeroen Bosch s-Hertogenbosch Hospital in the Netherlands.
Dr ten Berg said ChatGPT made a list of probable diagnoses and suggested the most likely option, adding: “We also found a lot of overlaps with doctors’ lists of probable diagnoses.” Simply put, this indicates that ChatGPT was able to suggest medical diagnoses much like a human doctor would.
‘For example, we included the case of a patient who had joint pain that was relieved with analgesics, but redness, joint pain and swelling always reappeared. In the previous days, the patient presented fever and sore throat. Sometimes there was discoloration of the fingertips.
“Based on the physical examination and additional testing, doctors thought the most likely diagnosis was probably rheumatic fever, but ChatGPT was right with their most likely diagnosis of vasculitis.”
Dr. ten Berg stressed that ChatGPT “is not a medical device” and that there are “privacy concerns” when using the program with medical data.
The team said that while ChatGPT was “capable of suggesting medical diagnoses as a human doctor would,” more work is needed before it is applied in the real world (File Photo).
“However, there is the possibility of saving time and reducing waiting times in the emergency department,” he added.
“The benefit of using artificial intelligence could be to help less experienced doctors or help detect rare diseases.”
The results of the study, published in the medical journal Annals of Emergency Medicine, will be presented at the European Congress of Emergency Medicine (EUSEM) 2023 in Barcelona.
Professor Youri Yordanov, from the emergency department of St Antoine Hospital in Paris, is chair of the EUSEM 2023 abstract committee.
He added: “We are a long way from using ChatGPT in the clinic, but it is vital that we explore new technology and consider how it could be used to help clinicians and their patients.”
‘People who need to go to the emergency department want to be seen as soon as possible and for their problem to be diagnosed and treated correctly. I hope that more research is done in this area and that it can ultimately support the work of busy health professionals.’
