ChatGPT Applications in Healthcare

ChatGPT is a free online tool, trained on millions of pages of data from the internet, and provides conversational responses to questions.

Highlights:

ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is an artificial intelligence platform developed by San Francisco-based startup OpenAI. The free online tool, trained on millions of pages of data from the internet, provides conversational responses to questions
For clinicians, these chatbots might serve as a brainstorming tool, prevent mistakes, and remove part of the strain of filling out paperwork, potentially alleviating burnout and allowing more facetime with patients
Chatbot models will continue to improve over time as they incorporate human comments and "learn."

The doctor-patient relationship is the foundation of the healthcare profession. The Hippocratic oath, medical ethics, professional codes of behavior, and regulation all play a role in this haven. Yet, all of these are vulnerable to disruption from digitization, developing technology, and artificial intelligence (AI).

Innovation, robots, digital technology, and enhanced diagnosis, prevention, and therapies have the potential to transform healthcare. They also pose ethical, legal, and societal issues. Since the floodgates on ChatGPT (Generative Pertaining Transformer) were opened in 2022, bioethicists like us have been thinking about the role this new "chatbot" could play in healthcare and health research.

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‘Currently, ChatGPT and other language processing tools promise to reshape medical care by offering patients more information than a simple online search and describing illnesses and treatments in a language that non-experts can understand.’

What is ChatGPT?

Chat GPT is a language model trained on vast amounts of internet content. It tries to mimic human text and can play a variety of roles in healthcare and health research.

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What Role Can ChatGPT Play in the Healthcare Sector?

Early adopters have begun utilizing ChatGPT to help with monotonous activities such as producing sick certificates, patient letters, and letters requesting medical insurers to cover specific pricey prescriptions for patients. In other words, it's like having a high-level personal assistant to help you get through bureaucratic tasks faster and spend more time with patients.

But, it may also aid with more important medical duties such as triage (deciding which patients will receive kidney dialysis or intensive care beds), which is critical in resource-constrained environments. It could also be used to enroll people in clinical studies.

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Ethical Problems Associated with ChatGPT

The use of this smart chatbot in patient care and medical research presents several ethical problems. Its use may have unforeseen and undesired consequences. There are issues with confidentiality, consent, quality of care, dependability, and equity.

It is too early to determine all of the ethical issues of using ChatGPT in healthcare and research. The more this technology is used, the clearer the consequences will become. Nonetheless, problems about potential hazards and governance of ChatGPT in medicine will certainly arise in the future, and we shall address them briefly below.

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Does ChatGPT Jeopardize Patient Privacy?

To begin with, using ChatGPT exposes you to the risk of violating your privacy. Machine learning is essential for successful and efficient AI. This necessitates that data be regularly fed back into chatbot neural networks. If identifying patient information is entered into ChatGPT, it becomes part of the data that the chatbot will utilize in the future. In other words, sensitive information is "out there" and exposed to third-party disclosure. It is unclear how much such information can be protected.

The confidentiality of patient information is the foundation of the doctor-patient relationship. ChatGPT jeopardizes this privacy, which vulnerable patients may not completely comprehend. Consent to AI-assisted healthcare may be inadequate. Patients may be unaware of what they are agreeing to.

The foundation of medical treatment and counseling is high-quality evidence. In today's democratized healthcare environment, physicians and patients use a variety of platforms to receive information that influences their decision-making. Nevertheless, at this point in its development, ChatGPT may not be appropriately resourced or designed to give accurate and fair information.

It is hazardous to employ technology that uses biased information based on under-represented data from people of color, women, and children. This was demonstrated by inaccurate readings from some types of pulse oximeters used to assess oxygen levels during the current COVID-19 outbreak.

It's also worth considering what ChatGPT could signify for low- and middle-income countries. The most obvious concern is one of access. The benefits and risks of developing technology are typically spread unevenly between countries.

Is ChatGPT Free?

Access to ChatGPT is currently free, but this will not remain. Monetized access to advanced versions of this language chatbot poses a risk to resource-constrained environments. It has the potential to exacerbate the digital gap and global health disparities.

The necessity of having special legislation to oversee the health uses of ChatGPT in low- and middle-income countries is highlighted by unequal access, the potential for exploitation, and the possibility of harm-by-data. Global rules for AI governance are evolving. Nonetheless, many low- and middle-income countries are still struggling to adopt and contextualize these concepts. Furthermore, several countries lack AI-specific legislation.

To ensure that the benefits of this new technology are experienced and equitably distributed, the global south requires locally relevant conversations about the ethical and legal implications of using it.

Source-Medindia