ChatGPT became available to the public in November 2022, and it has made headlines ever since. One of its notable achievements – according to a report by Dr. Tiffany Kung – was effectively passing the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE).
While ChatGPT isn’t a substitute for care from a medical professional, the technology does have the ability to enhance a variety of healthcare practices. Here are just some of the ways that ChatGPT could be beneficial to the medical community and patients.
How ChatGPT Can Enhance Healthcare Practices
Streamlining Administrative Tasks
ChatGPT is a generative text tool that could significantly reduce administrative workloads that are predominately based on writing. It could assist with the generation of informational materials, discharge paperwork, and other public-facing written content. Additionally, it could help with clinical notes and summaries.
Anything created would need to go through a thorough review process to ensure accuracy. Additionally, ChatGPT isn’t HIPAA-compliant, so medical professionals would need to avoid putting in personally identifiable information (PII) about patients when using the tool. Still, it could still be a significant time saver when compared to doing most of the writing by hand.
Triaging Incoming Patients
When emergency medical professionals initially assess incoming patients, the goal is to triage them based on the severity of the condition and risk to life, limb, or eyesight. While the related tasks are usually handled by intake and assessment professionals, ChatGPT could streamline the process. By inputting answers to patient questions, the tool could determine if any of the potential causes of the experienced symptoms justify more immediate care.
Essentially, ChatGPT could function as a supportive tool, augmenting the capabilities of staff and expediting triage. While, again, it requires input from a medical professional – as ChatGPT can overlook potential causes of symptoms – it could help ensure that severe conditions aren’t accidentally missed during the process.
Providing Quick Information
ChatGPT is able to draw on a massive amount of training data to answer a variety of questions, including providing insights into medical conditions. As a tool, this could help medical professionals quickly gather details on rarer conditions that they don’t often encounter, giving them a critical foundation when offering care.
While it’s critical to note that ChatGPT doesn’t guarantee accuracy, so some due diligence is required when reviewing what’s produced by the tool, it can serve as an excellent jumping-off point for additional research. As a result, it may shorten timelines for assisting patients with less common conditions, which can streamline operations while improving the overall patient experience.
Using ChatGPT as a Chatbot
ChatGPT can support real-time communication with users, generating most responses in a matter of mere seconds. As a result, it could serve as a basis for addressing a variety of patient inquiries and requests. For example, it could define terms outlined in discharge paperwork or help with appointment scheduling if properly utilized.
Additionally, a ChatGPT-base chatbot could offer support to medical professionals. For example, it could assist with differential diagnoses, using anonymized data to provide recommendations on potential symptom causes. Further, it could offer insights into possible treatments.
While these uses aren’t inherently workable based on how ChatGPT currently functions and its existing training data, the potential to head in those directions is clear. Doing so would enhance the patient experience, as well as help medical professionals use their time more efficiently. As a result, it’s a path worth exploring.
Supporting Improved Patient Care Through Language Services
ChatGPT can technically work as a translation service, but harnessing it in this way comes with risks. While the overall accuracy is generally reasonable when both the source and target languages are widely present on the internet, mistakes do occur. Additionally, ChatGPT doesn’t have many references to pull from for lesser-used languages, increasing the odds of inaccuracies that could harm patients.
Since reliable, accurate communication is critical for patient care, partnering with an experienced language services provider is the better choice. If you need skilled translators, Acutrans can provide professional certified document translations in 24 hours. Our team can help with generation translation and post-machine translation services. Plus, Acutrans has translation services designed for the healthcare sector specifically, ensuring the translators working on your documentation have the required amount of medical knowledge to provide accurate results.
Additionally, Acutrans has over-the-phone, video remote, and on-site interpretation programs and covers more than 200 languages. As with our translation services, there’s an industry-specific interpretation program designed explicitly for the medical sector. Contact us for a free quote today.