A physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston is testing a new artificial intelligence chatbot for healthcare, NPR reported Oct. 25.
Infectious disease specialist Michael Mansour, MD, PhD, is using the beta version of a generative AI tool in the UpToDate program from IT company Wolters Kluwer Health, according to the story. UpToDate allows clinicians to search a massive database of scientific articles for the latest medical research, and the new AI add-on aims to give the results in a more conversational — and targeted — format.
"Instead of spending those extra minutes searching things, (it) could allow me to go and talk to that person about their diagnosis, about what to expect for management," Dr. Mansour told the news outlet. "It restores that patient-doctor relationship."
Wolters Kluwer Health is testing the program for reliability before releasing it more widely, according to the story. Like other AI chatbots, it sometimes makes up, or "hallucinates," results.