News You Can Use – ChatGPT vs. Doctors: The Battle of Bloating Notes and Hilarious Hallucinations

The Tale of Prompt Engineering Gone Wild!

This month’s episode of “News You Can Use” on Healthcare NOW Radio features news from the month of July 2023.

As I did last month I am talking to Craig Joseph, MD (@CraigJoseph) Chief Medical Officer at Nordic Consulting Partners.

This month we open with a detailed discussion of the recently published paper “Comparison of History of Present Illness Summaries Generated by a Chatbot and Senior Internal Medicine Residents” which dives into the use of ChatGPT in healthcare generating a concise history of present illness (HPI) based on patient interviews. They explore a study where an AI was given a prompt to create an HPI after analyzing a patient interview. Initially, the AI struggled with hallucinations, making up patient details that were not provided in the interview. However, with iterative modifications to the prompt, the AI’s performance improved significantly.

We discuss the potential approaches to using Large Language Models (LLMs) and the potential of AI to aid physicians by generating efficient and clinically relevant content, leading to increased efficiency in healthcare practices. We view these technologies as tools to complement and support doctors rather than replace them entirely. And we go further into the potential to enhance medical decision-making and bring specialized expertise into some of the more general medical domains, making physicians more efficient and effective in their practice. We both believe that the key asset and skill in the future will be that of prompt engineering in AI applications and the potential for generative AI to support and enhance the efficiency of medical professionals.

Digital Health Tech for Seniors: Where Wearables and Zebras Collide

We discuss the paper in Nature: “Digital Health for aging populations” and how these digital health technologies offer a real opportunity to promote independence and reduce hospital stays and drive positive outcomes for elderly individuals

Listen in to hear our review of the Note Bloat research in the Epic Research Tools: “Two Years After Coding Changes Sought to Decrease Documentation, Notes Remain ‘Bloated’” that offers some interesting if somewhat less than stellar news that our notes have not gotten less bloaty as notes have become longer despite efforts to make them more succinct. While doctors are spending less time writing notes, the overall quality of the documentation remains a concern.

You can read more about the series here and the concept of keeping up with innovating in healthcare. Please send me your suggestions on topics you’d like to see covered. You can reach out direct via the contact form on my website, send me a message on LinkedIn or on my Facebook page (DrNickvT), or on Twitter tagging me (@DrNic1) and #TheIncrementalist or you can click this link to generate a ready-made tweet to fill in.

This article was originally published on the Dr. Nick – The Incrementalist blog and is republished here with permission.

For years Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick, has served as a voice on the impact of new technologies on healthcare, earning a reputation as a leading authority on where the future of medicine is going. Combining powers of observation and real world experience, Dr. Nick has seen many predictions come true and makes the case that innovations in healthcare can be accomplished incrementally, not just by moonshot events. Tune in to hear Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist and his guests discuss what the future of healthcare looks like, how we will get there, and what it will take to improve healthcare for all.

Tune in weekdays at 4:00am, 12 noon, and 8:00pm ET.

Join the conversation on Twitter at #TheIncrementalist