ChatGPT has been used across senior living to streamline administrative tasks and facilitate other areas of patient care. But while the technology can be useful in caring for patients, it has major drawbacks as well, one expert says.
R. Ryan Sadeghian, CMIO of Hunterdon Healthcare System, discussed the potential and pitfalls of ChatGPT in an interview with HealthcareIT News, discussing challenges that senior living operators and other healthcare professionals should address when using the technology.
ChatGPT, a large language model developed by OpenAI, learns large amounts of data and generates responses based on various prompts, giving responses that are indistinguishable from those written by humans.
ChatGPT’s uses in patient care include disease management, helping senior living and other healthcare providers examine drug interaction to improve care, plus patient education, empowering people to be involved in their own care and learn why they’re prescribed certain medications, Sadeghian explained. Particularly for people with diabetes and high blood pressure, which both impact older adults, ChatGPT can help patients track symptoms and manage them through lifestyle changes they can make on their own, outside of the treatment given by doctors or other healthcare professionals, he said.
But ChatGPT has limitations that senior living administrators and other healthcare professionals should be aware of. “Despite its potential, what we’re missing by using it is human touch, lack of intuition and not being able to understand certain contexts,” Sadeghian said. “When you see your doctor, there’s more nuance.”
ChatGPT isn’t advanced enough yet to see the nuances, and sometimes results in errors in treatment recommendations for complex medical conditions, and a consortium of doctors working together and sharing information can sometimes work better, he adds.
Additionally, he pointed out that since ChatGPT’s responses depend on the information fed into it, if it’s fed inaccurate or incomplete information (for instance, if it lacks access to patient records due to regulations like HIPAA), this can hamper ChatGPT’s ability to generate accurate responses. Another hurdle are legal and ethical concerns (for instance, if ChatGPT gives a recommendation that harms the patient, resulting in liabilities), Sadeghian said.
Other experts also have emphasized the power of human touch in using AI-based technologies like ChatGPT, both in terms of patient care and staffing efficiencies, noting that senior living operators need to combine both to be the most effective.
