Hardly a day goes by without my wife calling out to her phone, “Hey Siri, what is the temperature outside?” or “Hey Siri, what is the wind speed?” Siri, manifesting as a pleasant female voice on her iPhone, replies with an accurate assessment of the weather. The same can be said of Google’s Alexa. These so-called virtual assistants are algorithms, and function as a form of artificial intelligence (AI). In that regard, you ask questions, and they respond similarly to how an actual assistant would, except much faster. Someday algorithms like Siri and Alexa could provide high quality health advice. In 2024 the Mayo Clinic Press released a report titled, “AI in healthcare: The future of patient care and health management.”
One area where AI is already making inroads is in preventive medicine. If you’ve gotten a mammogram there is a good chance an AI algorithm perused the image before a radiologist. Any time there are repetitive, mundane tasks that take minutes to portions of an hour to carefully inspect, an AI algorithm can do it in seconds and flag potential problems for the radiologist to review. More from the Mayo Clinic report:
Studies have shown that in some situations, AI can do a more accurate job than humans. For example, AI has done a more accurate job than current pathology methods in predicting who will survive malignant mesothelioma, which is a type of cancer that impacts the internal organs. AI is used to identify colon polyps and has been shown to improve colonoscopy accuracy and diagnose colorectal cancer as accurately as skilled endoscopists can.
It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Back in late 2007 I wrote about a decision support tool used by the Veterans Administration nurse call line. My father had recently died of a thoracic aortic aneurism. Out of curiosity I used the online tool to see if it could diagnose my father’s symptoms and it did. There are other examples, such as polycystic kidney disease. By comparing multiple images of kidneys over time, an AI algorithm can predict kidney failure in seconds, a tedious process comparing dozens of images that takes a physician up to 45 minutes.
There are other uses for AI that directly interacts with patients. The following is an excerpt from the report:
When it comes to supporting the overall health of a population, AI can help people manage chronic illnesses themselves — think asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure — by connecting certain people with relevant screening and therapy, and reminding them to take steps in their care, such as take medication.AI also can help promote information on disease prevention online, reaching large numbers of people quickly, and even analyze text on social media to predict outbreaks.
What if patients had access to a Doctor Siri or a Doctor Alexa? “Hey Dr. Siri, I’ve had a slight cough for the past month, my throat is not really sore, but the cough doesn’t seem to go away. Should I see a doctor?” Perhaps Dr. Siri could ask me follow up questions: “Do you feel congested? Do you have postnasal drip? The pollen count has been high in your area for the past month, with mountain cedar blowing in from Central Texas. I’ve had many requests about sinuses and allergies from your area.”
People are sometimes afraid to talk frankly to their doctor or their doctor is so busy patients hesitate to bother him or her. Past studies have found patients forget to ask many of the questions they meant to ask and only remember a portion of what they do discuss. Easier access to information would benefit patients. More from Mayo Clinic Press:
In a study of a social media forum, most people asking healthcare questions preferred responses from an AI-powered chatbot over those from physicians, ranking the chatbot’s answers higher in quality and empathy.
Recently I used a telemedicine service called Invigor Medical. You fill out an online questionnaire, a doctor reviews it and prescribes a drug, which arrives by mail. Just imagine if Dr. Siri worked for your doctor, allowing 10 times more patients to be treated. Perhaps your earlier discussions with Dr. Siri could be archived and forwarded, saving doctor and patient a lot of time.
AI is unlikely to replace your family physician, but it could make him or her more productive. It could also provide health information to patients unable to schedule an appointment with busy physicians.
Read more at Mayo Clinic Press: AI in healthcare: The future of patient care and health management
The Wall Street Journal ran an article about a mental health chatbot installed in phones meant for kids https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/kids-mental-health-chatbot-troodi-d5c646bb?mod=health_lead_story