In a survey published in the BMJ Health and Care Informatics, it was found that almost one in 5 GPs use Gen AI tools. The survey was done between 2nd Feb – 24th Feb 2024 on nearly 1000 GPs working in the UK who have profiles on Doctors.net.uk

It is surprising that nearly 29% of them had used it to generate documents after the patient’s appointment and nearly 28% of them have used to offer diagnosis to the patient.

It is not clear yet whether there is a clear UK policy allowing GPs to use Gen AI tools in their practice other than for administrative work.

According to the researchers, the findings indicate that the Gen AI tools may offer some value to the GPs for administrative work and for help in clinical reasoning.

The survey whose link was shared by credible sources such as The Guardian has since not opened up. The survey can be viewed here also.

Nearly 25% of GPs have used the likes of ChatGPT in order to suggest treatment options to their patients. It was not stated in the survey which model of ChatGPT (or of other Gen AI tools) the physicians mostly used.

The efficacy of ChatGPT and other Gen AI tools may be debated but one study indicated that ChatGPT may be helpful to medical personnel but in a general manner.

Source : – ScienceDirect

As per the survey, nearly 80% of GPs expressed a need for more training and familiarity to understand these tools better. 41% of them believed that Gen AI tools could be used for treatment plans, while 40% of them believed that such tools could be used for diagnostic accuracy.

The survey also highlights that General practitioners (GPs) who utilized these tools expressed a notably greater optimism regarding the potential of generative AI to enhance clinical tasks than those who did not use them.

The research did not indicate whether the GPs had any concerns about patients’ privacy and diagnostic information that they may have used in the prompts of Gen AI tools therefore, guidelines, rules, and regulations need to be adopted in the UK that regulate the use of Gen AI tools like ChatGPT, Bing, Perplexity for any work other than administrative and intern support.