Transformative tech: GenAI viewed as helping to save time and optimize care teams
With healthcare facing challenges with staffing shortages and burnout, physicians see many benefits to applying GenAI in the care continuum. When asked how GenAI could support decision making or improve interactions at the point-of-care:
- Four in five (81%) physicians say GenAI will improve care team interaction with patients.
- Over half believe GenAI will save them 20% or more time.
- Over two-thirds (68%) say it can save time by quickly searching medical literature.
- Three in five (59%) say it can save time by summarizing data about patients from the electronic health record (EHR).
- Only 3% do not believe GenAI will improve interactions with patients.
Doctors and patients diverge on GenAI in care
Comparing results of this survey with a Wolters Kluwer survey of U.S. consumers conducted in late 2023 shows that consumers have different views on the integration of GenAI into the physician/patient interaction. Two-thirds of physicians say that patients would be confident in GenAI results to make clinical decisions while just over half of patients report they would be confident. When physicians were asked if they believe patients would be concerned about the use of GenAI in a diagnosis, only one out of five physicians said yes. Conversely, when asked directly, four out of five Americans reported they would be concerned, suggesting a wide gap in perceptions about GenAI readiness among health consumers.
Doctors set high transparency and content source standards for GenAI guidelines
Physicians’ responses reflect a landscape that is still developing clear guidance or policies on using GenAI. Over a third (37%) say there are currently no guidelines in place at their organizations about using GenAI while almost half (46%) say they don’t know of any guidelines.
Still, physicians have concerns about the source of content and want transparency. For the majority of physicians (58%), the number one most important factor when selecting a GenAI tool is knowing the content it is trained on was created by medical professionals.
Nine out 10 (89%) report they would be more likely to use GenAI in clinical decisions if the vendor was transparent about where the information came from, who created it, and how it was resourced. Knowing that the technology is from a well-known, trusted company was also a priority: 76% would be more comfortable using GenAI knowing it came from established vendors in the healthcare sector.
A responsible approach to Clinical GenAI
Wolters Kluwer Health recently expanded the beta of AI Labs, its collaborative solution to explore the experimental use of Clinical GenAI, to 100 U.S. hospitals. AI Labs has access to the complete set of UpToDate® evidence-based clinical content and graded recommendations across more than 25 medical specialties. It is the only large language model (LLM) exclusively powered by UpToDate trusted content. UpToDate is used by more than two million users at more than 44,000 healthcare organizations in over 190 countries. Watch this video to learn more about Wolters Kluwer’s mission for Clinical GenAI.
