About The Study: In this study of 195 randomly drawn patient questions from a social media forum, a team of licensed health care professionals compared physician's and chatbot's responses. The chatbot responses were preferred over physician responses and rated significantly higher for both quality and empathy. Further exploration of this technology is warranted in clinical settings, such as using chatbot to draft responses that physicians could then edit. Randomized trials could assess further if using AI assistants might improve responses, lower clinician burnout, and improve patient outcomes.
Authors: John W. Ayers, Ph.D., M.A., of the University of California San Diego, La Jolla, is the corresponding author.
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(doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.1838)