As the flood of news will ebb over the next two to three weeks or so (and your Editor takes annual leave), some reading for your pondering.
Bain and Company, the well-known (and well-feared when they come to your company) management consultants (and investors), recently published results from March’s “US Frontline of Consumer Healthcare Survey“ taken from 500 (undefined) respondents. Unfortunately, with the article, there is no opportunity to download the full survey or review the methodology. From their featured toplines, though, we can savvy that there are still many patient and clinical doubts around generative AI.
Bain’s article generally spins positives from the results. For instance, their lead is that patients are ‘more comfortable with generative artificial intelligence (AI) analyzing their radiology scan and making a diagnosis than answering the phone at their doctor’s office.’ Their second lead is that clinicians generally have ‘a positive view, recognizing generative AI’s potential to alleviate administrative burdens and reduce clinician workload”.
Your Editor takes a more Gimlety view. First, let’s review consumer comfort with generative AI in five functions:
- No ‘comfortable’ response is above 37%. Adding in ‘neutral’ at 18%, the only area breaking 50% is “taking notes during appointments to send follow-ups” at 55%. Consumers are not comfortable with generative AI “providing medical advice, treatment plans, and prescriptions” at 21% (11% and 10% respectively).
- ‘Not comfortable’ is lowest for notes for follow up at 45%. The highest is for medical advice at a eye-blinking 79%. In between, the range is 52% to 68%–indicating strong consumer resistance across the board.
- As to analyzing radiology scans, there is a lot more comfort with that report going to the doctor for review than AI making a diagnosis. For reports to the doctor, the ‘comfortable’ response is 31% but falls to 21% for diagnosis. ‘Not comfortable’ notches from 52% to 62%
- For answering calls for providers or insurers, there is definite unacceptance at 68% with only 33% ‘neutral’ or ‘comfortable’.
Provider perspectives are split between physicians and (undefined) administrators. (No neutral in these responses)
- They both believe that administrative burden and workload will be reduced, with admins far more hopeful than physicians at 43% and 35% by area respectively.
- What neither group likes is the potential to undermine the patient-provider experience: 19% negative for the physicians and the admins not far behind at -17%.
The takeaway: Generative AI is following the telehealth curve in initial low acceptance. The responses and proportions resemble the early days of telehealth and to a lesser degree, remote patient monitoring. Information didn’t fit into workflows, wasn’t seen as critical, and increased administrative burdens. With acceptance languishing for over a decade, it took a black swan event called the Covid Pandemic to overcome–and in the end it reshaped telehealth, as Teladoc and Amwell have learned.
But in present time, if your Editor as a consultant were presenting this to an AI developer, a physician group, or investors, she would advise preparing for a long, hard road. A road which needs validation, real revenue models, demonstrated accuracy, acceptances, and proven value in solving crucial problems and cost reductions. Natural-language processing (NLP) is being touted as a tool for most of this–but it is only part of the picture.
Views at variance: Healthcare IT News (NLP interest), MedCityNews (LLMs losing to humans on medical knowledge), MedCity News (on proving value)
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