Stanford AIMI Director Curt Langlotz

Digital Health

ChatGPT Crowned the Champ of Bedside Manner

The most talked about research of the week was easily the JAMA Internal Medicine study that found that licensed medical professionals prefer ChatGPT’s responses to patient questions better than doctors’ responses 79% of the time – in part because ChatGPT is more empathetic.

What wasn’t discussed as much was the fact that the doctors’ responses were sourced from questions on Reddit – AKA from doctors with the time and empathy to share their thoughts in the first place – so it’s possible that ChatGPT’s lead is even wider than it’s getting credit for.

Here’s how it worked. Researchers randomly pulled 195 exchanges from the r/AskDocs subreddit where a verified physician responded to a patient question.

• ChatGPT responses were then generated by entering the original question into a fresh session (without prior questions to work with). The anonymized responses were then evaluated by five licensed medical professionals.

• Evaluators chose “which response was better,” then judged “the quality of information provided” (very poor, poor, acceptable, good, or very good) and “the empathy or bedside manner provided” (not empathetic, slightly empathetic, moderately empathetic, empathetic, and very empathetic). Outcomes were transferred to a 5 point scale.

The results were a blowout. The proportion of responses rated as “good” or “very good” quality was 3.6x higher for ChatGPT, with 78.5% of ChatGPT responses scoring ≥4 points versus… 22.1% for physicians.

• The proportion of responses rated as “empathetic” or “very empathetic” was a whopping 9.8x higher for ChatGPT, with 45.1% of ChatGPT responses scoring ≥4 points versus just 4.6% for physicians. 

• Disclaimer: It probably wasn’t too hard for the judges to discern between ChatGPT’s well-punctuated prose (not to mention its 211 word average response length) and the off-the-cuff Reddit comments of the physicians (52 word average).

The Takeaway

When it comes to answering the health questions of random Reddit users, tireless AI robots appear to be far better than physicians donating their time. That said, overflowing EHR inboxes remain a leading contributor to physician burnout, and the authors summed it up perfectly with: “Despite the limitations of this study and the frequent overhyping of new technologies, studying the addition of AI assistants to patient messaging workflows holds promise with the potential to improve both clinician and patient outcomes.”

Goodbye Staffing Shortages, Hello Peace of Mind

connectRN, the leading nurse community, provides highly qualified, W2 clinicians at rates you can count on. Post shifts, build relationships, and keep your community staffed with connectRN’s user-friendly platform.

The New Standard for Prescription Safety

Synapse Medicine’s quick-deploy Prescription Assistance API and components can be up and running in less than a day and instantly connect your HCPs to real-time drug data and prescribing support. Find out how easy it can be to equip your providers with the tools they need to ensure prescription safety and precision for their patients.

What is Patient Engagement for a CMIO?

In its patient engagement guide for hospital execs, Nuance examines the goals and challenges of Chief Medical Information Officers, highlighting the ways that AI-powered patient engagement solutions can help CMIOs reduce physician burnout and improve care delivery.

The Wire

• eVisit Acquires Bluestream: Virtual care platform eVisit acquired Bluestream Health, adding digital front doors and integrated language services to its existing capabilities for health systems. Maybe more importantly, Bluestream also doubles eVisit’s customer base to over 100 care delivery organizations and bolsters its ability to expand into new areas, such as providers focused on public health and incarcerated populations.

• Emcara Selects Innovaccer: Emcara Health, PopHealthCare’s in-home primary care group for seniors and vulnerable populations, selected Innovaccer’s data platform to help it scale nationwide. This is a first-of-its-kind partnership for Innovaccer considering all of Emcara’s care delivery takes place in the home. The medical group will now be replacing its home-grown tech stack to improve its population health management capabilities while automating care transition protocols as it pushes deeper into VBC.

• Amazon Clinic Data Sharing: The Washington Post stirred the pot this week with an article outlining how Amazon Clinic’s HIPAA authorization form requires that patients sign over privacy protections. The form allows Amazon the “use and disclosure of protected health information,” noting that the data “may be re-disclosed” after which it “will no longer be protected by HIPAA.” Although Amazon responded that it wasn’t in the business of sharing health data, the article points out that a pinky-promise from big tech isn’t usually good enough to stop abuse.

• Hospital-Physician Ties = High-Intensity Care: An analysis of 14k Medicare claims in Health Affairs found that heart patients with a stable angina diagnosis were significantly more likely to receive high-intensity interventions when their cardiologists were employed by a hospital rather than independent, including cardiac catheterizations (38% vs. 33%) and coronary angioplasties (14% vs. 11%). The findings led the authors to encourage policy makers to take a harder look at the incentive arrangements between hospitals and physicians.

• Kindbody Adds $25M: Less than two months after closing its $100M Series D round (our full deep dive), fertility payvidor Kindbody locked in another $25M to enter new markets and expand its services into areas such as menopause treatment and male fertility. Kindbody is the only family-building benefits provider that also operates clinics, allowing it to provide comprehensive hybrid care while contracting directly with employers to keep costs under control.

• Artera Self Service Analytics: Artera is rolling out Self Service Analytics to let healthcare orgs using its patient communications platform generate highly customized reports to understand their engagement data. Self Service Analytics lets hands-on users get as granular as needed with the data, allowing them to modify over 30 existing dashboards such as Campaign Effectiveness (A/B test messages to optimize clickthrough) or Inbound Keyword Automation (develop automations for common inquiries).

• Transportation’s Link to Health: In the last year, 21% of US adults without access to transportation skipped needed medical care, according to Urban Institute research. Adults with disabilities (17%), low family incomes (14%), and public health coverage (12%) were all more likely to forgo care due to transportation, suggesting that telehealth is only one part of a larger access problem.

• Masimo v. Apple Mistrial: A US judge declared a mistrial in Masimo’s $1.8B trade secret case against Apple after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict. Masimo alleged that Apple hired away key executives and stole blood oxygen sensor tech that later appeared in the Apple Watch, and Masimo is now pushing for a retrial despite six of seven jurors siding with Apple. Note that this is all separate from AliveCor’s ongoing ECG patent infringement litigation against the Cupertino tech giant.

• AvaSure Virtual Nursing Launch: After a series of six recent virtual nursing implementations, AvaSure is launching a Virtual Nursing Application and Care Model to provide “an augmented care environment” that elevates the support virtual nurses can give bedside teams. AvaSure’s programs deliver support within two emerging models: 1) Expert Oversight TeleNurses that monitor for potential deterioration and conduct virtual rounding; 2) Clinical Resource TeleNurses focused on admission/discharge as well as patient/family education.

• CirrusMD + Michaels: CirrusMD has been hitting its stride providing virtual primary care directly to retailers, with Michaels recently signing on to bring telehealth to all employees, including seasonal and part-time workers. Other major retailers like Target also offer CirrusMD as a benefit, which has reportedly led to a 45% turnover reduction in employees that used the virtual primary care solution at least once.

• EHR Prompts CT Lung Screening: Adding physician prompts about CT lung cancer screening into the EHR boosted screening orders by 20 percentage points in a new study in Chest. In a study of over 1k patients, researchers found that the prompts boosted both order rates for lung screening (7.1% vs. 27.3%) and rates for completed screenings (4.4% vs. 17.7%). Better promotion of CT lung screening could boost anemic compliance rates, which remain mired in the single digits.

Better Diabetes Management With Glooko

Glooko’s diabetes management platform transforms the way patients connect with their providers, driving better engagement, adherence, and ultimately outcomes. Take a look at Glooko’s latest clinical studies to see how their platform is driving sustained improvements for people with diabetes.

3 Ways to Ease the Pain of Provider Credentialing

Is provider credentialing adding cost and time to your bottom line? Check out Medallion’s new blog for three ways to ease the pain of provider credentialing so that you can focus on delivering quality care.

Clear Arch Health Unlocks Turnkey Virtual Care

Clear Arch Health’s turnkey remote patient monitoring and PERS solutions are fully customizable to meet the unique needs of every organization. Discover how Clear Arch Health is helping hospitals, physicians groups, and home health agencies effectively manage patient care – whenever and wherever it’s needed.