AI saves more lives than doctors – but creates new problems

Charlotte Blease has studied how much generative AI is already used in healthcare today. Studies show that more doctors than you might think are using the new AI tools in their daily work. The reason, in her opinion, is that there are currently major limitations in healthcare, where AI can help.

“In the book I ask the question: even if you have the best funded health system in the world, would there still be limiting factors in terms of what human beings can do? Then I try to look at how AI might be able to address some of these challenges.”

The patient’s journey through the health system

She has analysed the patient journey in healthcare. From symptoms, to booking an appointment, going to the doctor and talking about it. The doctor then uses their knowledge and expertise to find out what is wrong and treats the patient. But there are several obstacles along the way.

For example, doctors are exposed to high levels of stress, an increasing number of patients and constantly evolving medical knowledge. At the same time, like all human beings, they harbour various prejudices that affect the care patients receive.

“I came to the conclusion that AI does have huge promise, because humans are very limited in some ways in medicine, and it’s a massive struggle for doctors to do what they are expected to do. But that’s not the only rationale or the only challenge with AI.”

Benefits and concerns

Blease looks at it all from two different angles. She wants to avoid an overly utopian view of AI, but also an excessively dystopian view.

“There’s a lot to fear and worry about when it comes to AI, but there’s also a lot that AI could do for humanity. To get the best out of AI, we need to realise that it must be balanced with privacy. There are regulatory issues, environmental costs and growing inequality. What happens to the jobs that some of these tools may take over?”

Research in different countries

The book is based on research in different countries, including at Uppsala University, where Blease arrived three years ago. Here in Uppsala, she has studied online access to medical records and the use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT by doctors in the UK.

“I think people have been surprised by the extent of the uptake. We have also studied how AI tools could be used to make records more accessible and empathetic. An interesting study found that ChatGPT could insert very rich signatures of empathy in a way that we found no trace of at all in the documentation written by human doctors.”

Background in philosophy

Blease has a background as a university lecturer in philosophy in the UK, but then moved on to medical faculties. She is now an associate professor of health informatics.

Why is this research important?

“We need to have a debate on the future of healthcare. And we’ve really got to have a reckoning about the use of these tools. We know patients are using generative AI tools like ChatGPT, but we also know from our research that doctors are using these tools. So we have to wake up to that – even if these are uncomfortable debates.”

New professional roles

There is the question, for example, of security measures and how to integrate the tools into healthcare workflows. Is there a need for new types of professional roles and relations? What sort of identity will doctors have in the future and what kind of expertise will they need, if they are needed at all? There are many issues to address.

“It would be unforgivable to delay the debate because there could be risks, there could be benefits, and we really need to have a very open and honest conversation about all of these things. The technology could potentially do a lot for a lot of people, but there are no innovations that have come without challenges.”

Annica Hulth