Generative AI,a new wave of technology,is appearing in healthcare

should act as assistants, instead of replacing doctors or any sort of human expert. “There needs to be a human in the loop to verify the results,” he asserted. “We call this a co-pilot, and we always want to make sure a human is part of the process.”

Given the dramatic growth of medical knowledge, ChatGPT and other genAI systems could help doctors with assessments and therapies. The artificially intelligent systems could comb the Internet for advances and the latest knowledge or best practices. If something seems out of kilter, however, the doctor is always there to check, using his or her own experience and knowledge.

Commercial systems that produce consistently accurate diagnoses and suggest the best therapies may still be some time off. On a related note, physicians have shown a degree of mistrust of AI systems, largely because they appear as “black boxes” that don’t tell us how they arrive at decisions.

Dr. Rhew, however, asserted that genAI systems can be asked how they arrive at an answer, and they will supply it. “They’re very good at quality assurance,” he said.

“You can even ask it to respond in a way that a seventh-grade student would understand, and it will answer in this way.”

On a more positive note, generative AI systems are already helping clinicians reduce their crushing loads of administrative tasks. Software solutions have appeared that can reduce the documentation that clinicians are currently required to do –documentation that’s leading to exhaustion and burnout for many.

For example, Abridge, a Pittsburghbased leader in AI-powered medical documentation, this year announced a partnership with The University of Kansas Health System that it calls the most significant rollout to date of generative AI in healthcare.

Abridge said the new partnership has the potential to serve and support more than 1,500 practicing physicians across the University of Kansas Health System’s 140+ locations, as well as additional clinicians in a phased rollout.

Abridge’s technology identifies over 90 percent of the key points from providerpatient conversations and generates summaries in the formats preferred by clinicians. According to a company news re-