Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
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The rise of artificial intelligence has added a third window for people to seek health advice. Beyond doctors and Google, people are turning to AI chatbots in waves.
About one in six adults uses AI semi-regularly for health advice and information, according to the 2024 Kaiser Family Foundation Health Misinformation Tracking Poll, although that percentage has presumably increased since then. The majority of Americans say AI-generated health information is somewhat or very reliable, according to recent survey data from the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) at the University of Pennsylvania.
“What the Google query was yesterday, the GPT prompt is today,” Dr. Neel Shah, a board-certified OBGYN and the chief medical officer of Maven, a health care company that digitally serves the largest population of women and families, tells Flow Space.
For Maven’s 15 million members, AI chatbots like ChatGPT are “becoming a primary source of information,” Shah explains.
“Consumer behavior is changing really rapidly,” he adds.
But there’s no instruction manual for using AI for health care (or anything else, really) — and experts say simple tips can help you get what you want while protecting you from the consequences that can come from treating AI as a diagnostician.
Here are four tips from health care providers for using AI for your health questions:
While health providers are HIPAA-compliant, AI is not subject to the same set of regulations. Therefore, data privacy is a concern — especially when it comes to sensitive health information.
“Healthcare privacy is sacrosanct, and right now, the average consumer at Maven we see is more comfortable sharing really personal, even stigmatizing and risky information to an anonymous platform than they are to a white coat,” Shah says.
While AI performs better with more information, Shah says he would be wary of directly uploading health lab results and documents containing personal information.
Instead, spend time thinking about the input and ask questions with your particular motivations in mind, such as how you can improve your nighttime routine for better sleep or which symptoms are common for a certain condition (though don’t treat it as a sure diagnosis). Treat an AI chatbot like “a really smart personal assistant,” Shah says, rather than a replacement for a human clinician.
The more information you give a chatbot, the better, so it’s hard to balance privacy concerns with optimizing the questions for outcomes. One suggestion, Shah poses, is asking health questions “for a friend.” When sick earlier this year, Shah tried this by giving the chatbot information about a “male 40-year-old friend.”
“I gave it details, but I didn’t say it was me to protect my privacy,” says Shah, who also asked the chatbot for a counterargument and evidence, followed by taking this information to a human doctor.
AI can also help you organize and prepare for an upcoming appointment, suggest questions to ask, and help you create a tracker for the medications or supplements you may be taking. Treat it as an organizer, Shah says.
Additionally, it goes without saying that health and wellness claims dominate various corners of the internet. These claims are sometimes contradictory, particularly around underfunded and underresearched topics in women’s health. Using an AI chatbot to help organize all of the noise you’re hearing and formulate your fears and questions can help you enter an appointment with more confidence.
An AI agent can “be a place to reconcile all the different inbounds,” Shah says.
AI will never know the whole picture because context is crucial in health care diagnosis and treatment plans. As Dr. Robin Berzin, a trained internal medicine physician and the CEO of Parsley Health, a functional medicine and longevity care company, wrote in her newsletter, “Even great answers can be wrong if they don’t apply to your body, history, and lifestyle. AI can’t intuit your underlying issues or recognize that your insomnia is tied to perimenopause and not just stress or screen time. That kind of nuance still needs a human.”
Despite the seamless experience of asking an AI chatbot about your symptoms in the comfort of your home, it’s not a foolproof diagnostic tool, and it shouldn’t be trusted without additional fact-checking and context.
“We’re not close to the point of being able to consider it the final word on anything,” Shah says. “If it tells you something that you think is really big, verify it with an expert human.”
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By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services.