Study: Comparing AI Chatbot vs. Physician Responses

A recent study in JAMA Internal Medicine has sparked conversations since publication. The study compared physician versus AI chatbot responses to patient’s questions asked on a public social media forum. It found that the chatbot responses were preferred over physician responses. Particularly, chatbots were rated higher for empathy and quality. Tim Martin, Yseop’s Vice president of Product and Development was featured in USA Today discussing this topic further. We’ve outlined more of Tim’s thoughts on this topic below.

Interesting Use Case for AI: Chatbot Responses

As Tim believes, chatbot responses to patient questions is an interesting use case for AI. Looking at the pressure that’s put on doctors to see more patients on a daily basis, it’s not surprising to see that there is an impact on both the quality of patient response and detected level of empathy. 

While AI chatbots don’t have feelings, they can certainly be programmed to have an empathetic tone. Also, it’s possible to consider a patient’s medical history and preferences to create more personalized responses. Put these components together and a very satisfying experience can be offered on a large scale to patients. Over time, this will improve further with the right feedback mechanisms.

Overall, combining the strengths of humans and AI for use cases such as this one is a great example of how AI can augment humans in impactful ways. In this case, AI chatbots can deliver a more enhanced interaction at scale for many patients with higher satisfaction. In turn, doctors can devote more of their time focusing on complex medical situations that require a deeper level of intuition and judgment. To learn more about this study and Tim’s insights, check out the recent piece in USA Today here.

Yseop’s AI Solutions

At Yseop, we view AI being a “copilot” to humans in our life sciences products with the primary goal of augmenting human capabilities through AI. This combination of human and AI strengths can be a powerful solution for many interesting use cases across the healthcare sector. To learn more about Yseop’s AI solutions and how they can help your organization, please contact us here.