Chatbots and AI: Enhancing Efficiency and Accessibility in Medical Care, New Review Highlights Future Trends
India: A recent scoping review has shed light on the evolving role of chatbots in the medical field, highlighting their potential to enhance the accessibility, efficiency, and quality of medical care. The review underscores how artificial intelligence (AI), particularly in the form of chatbots, can revolutionize routine medical functions and activities.
The review revealed the effectiveness of these applications in providing mental health support to patients, as well as enhancing their awareness through patient education strategies. They are also helpful in organizing health-related information for the benefit of patients, physicians, and the general public.
The study is scheduled for publication in the Oct-Dec 2024 issue of Apollo Medicine and is now available online ahead of its print release.
Describing the concept of chatbots, lead author, Dr. Vibhu Krishnan Viswanathan from the Department of Orthopaedics at Dr. Rela Institute and Medical Center in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, explained, "Chatbots are computer programs designed to simulate conversations through voice or based-interactions. These applications offer a range of benefits, including enhancing patient education, supporting clinical decision-making, improving interpersonal communication, facilitating research, aiding in data analysis, and streamlining administrative tasks. This scoping review examines the current roles, challenges, and future potential of chatbots across various medical fields."
"On the clinical front, chatbots and AI can be beneficial in scheduling patient appointments, triaging individuals in clinics and emergencies, as well as ensuring appropriate language translations and communications. They can also help in clinical decision-making, based on their ability to evaluate patients’ symptoms and diagnosis of pathology. AI can also be useful in organizing regular patient surveillance, coordinating post-discharge care, arranging visits; and carrying out remote patient monitoring," Dr. Viswanathan told Medical Dialogues.
The researchers conducted a literature search on April 9, 2024, across five databases (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, and Google Scholar). The results were synthesized using a narrative approach.
The researchers reported the following findings:
- A literature search resulted in 1,024 studies. After removing duplicates with Endnote, 342 articles were selected.
- Following the screening of titles and abstracts, 74 articles were shortlisted for further review. Ultimately, 14 articles were chosen for scoping review.
- A wide range of chatbot applications has been rapidly developed for use in medical science. There is an increasing trend towards utilizing machine learning techniques to create these chatbot programs.
- Chatbots have substantial potential to transform various aspects of medicine, including patient care, educational activities, and research efforts.
According to the researchers, "the role of Chatbots in a wide variety of surgical and non-surgical specialties such as Orthopaedic Surgery, Oncology, Radiology, Psychiatry, Infectious diseases; and weight reduction and lifestyle modifications have been described in the literature.
"The major considerations regarding the use of chatbots in the medical field include breaches in patient privacy, infringement on patient’s autonomy and decision-making, potential bias, unequal access of patients to chatbots, need for establishing chatbot-based protocols and diagnostic algorithms, medicolegal and ethical concerns of errors in diagnosis, language biases, reduced physician empathy, disrupted interpersonal communications, and inadequate transparency in the decision-making process," concluded Dr. Viswanathan.
Reference: Viswanathan VK, Jain VK, Vaish A, Jeyaraman M, Iyengar KP, Vaishya R. Chatbots and Their Applications in Medical Fields: Current Status and Future Trends: A Scoping Review. Apollo Medicine. 2024;0(0). doi:10.1177/09760016241259851
