In recent months, the UMCG and the ETZ in Tilburg conducted a trial with this AI application. The UMCG is the first hospital in Europe to actually implement the chatbot in written communication with patients. During the trial period, healthcare providers meticulously checked the AI-generated responses. Tom van der Laan, ENT doctor and Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) at the UMCG, says, "It's wonderful to see what artificial intelligence is capable of. But healthcare remains human work: there is always a doctor or nurse who checks the answer before we send it. Artificial intelligence can support and simplify the work, but healthcare professionals are irreplaceable in care for the time being."
Weekly, patients ask over 1200 written questions to their UMCG healthcare provider. These questions may relate to medication use, pain management, and when they can resume activities like sports, work, or travel after surgery. Answering all these questions consumes a lot of time for doctors and other healthcare providers, time they often don't have. Van der Laan explains, "It's very simple; if healthcare providers spend less time on these administrative tasks, there is more time for the patient."
The AI application was developed by EPR provider Epic. During the trial period, the system's way of answering patient questions was refined. It is not a self-learning system; the chatbot does not learn from patient data. The chatbot is integrated into the EPR, ensuring patient data remains secure within the system. Even the vendor cannot access it.
In the United States, this application is already used in various hospitals. Van der Laan notes, "Experiences there are very positive. One might think that such a system makes contact with healthcare providers less personal, but nothing could be further from the truth. Because healthcare providers now answer questions in between other tasks, they often do so somewhat abruptly. Artificial intelligence not only provides more informative and detailed answers, but AI also does so more empathetically. We expect to have the same positive experiences in the Netherlands."
AI offers many more possibilities for healthcare. Van der Laan mentions, "If I have clinical work for half a day now, it takes me about 1.5 to 2 hours of preparation time. I read the file of each patient, examine changes in medication use and treatments by other healthcare providers. If AI can summarize that with only the relevant information, it can save a lot of time. But AI can also create a patient-friendly summary of a surgical report or quickly write a discharge letter so that the general practitioner is promptly informed about the patient's hospitalization. I expect that we will see many more applications in healthcare in the coming years. Initially, mainly with language models like ChatGPT, but eventually also with robotics. The applications are endless."
In the coming weeks and months, more Dutch hospitals with the same EPR provider will start using this application, in collaboration with other hospitals from the EPIC Dutch Association. The collaboration with other hospitals enables faster adoption of this technology collectively for the benefit of patients and healthcare providers.
For all applications, one thing remains constant: there is always a healthcare provider, a real person, involved. And responsible. The system does not provide medical advice but supports the healthcare provider in their tasks. This benefits the productivity and job satisfaction of the healthcare provider but, more importantly, the quality of care for the patient.
