How ChatGPT In Healthcare Sector Can Be Transformative?

Doctors are nothing short of God-sent angels. They work tirelessly and help their patients get the best treatment. However, the role and responsibilities of healthcare workers have been changing over time. From the apothecaries of the olden times to modern-day doctors, there has been a major shift. In present times ChatGPT in healthcare has come to assume another important role and provide extraordinary opportunities.

In this article, we will learn how various uses of this Artificial Intelligence-based technology has the potential to redefine the healthcare sector.

How Can Doctors Use ChatGPT in Healthcare?

This section will discuss how doctors can use ChatGPT in healthcare industry.

ChatGPT for Healthcare Automation

The top responsibility of the doctor is to attend to their patients. They have to carefully listen to their patients, understand their illnesses, prepare a diagnosis, and start a treatment plan.

However, when doctors are working in a professional setting, they have to do several other repetitive tasks as well. For instance, the simple task of maintaining patient data is crucial. But if doctors have to keep manual records of all the patients they meet, it consumes a lot of time. ChatGPT in healthcare can decrease the workload of doctors and nurses. In this way, it can prevent cases of burnout and stress.

For such tasks, ChatGPT in healthcare system can be used. Chatbots like ChatGPT use Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technologies to analyze, optimize, and improve healthcare services.

Healthcare providers can automate routine tasks, such as scheduling follow-up sessions and patient appointments, maintaining patient records, taking patient feedback and clinical notes, enhancing patient experience, improving patient outcomes, etc.

The intelligent automation process can be useful for the administrative departments in the healthcare sector. The administrative tasks performed by these departments are the backbone of the healthcare sector. You do not see them directly offering healthcare services but they ensure doctors and nurses are able to do their efficiently.

The administrative processes in the healthcare sector involve:

1. It can be used for managing the timetables of the doctors. It ensures the hospital/clinic/healthcare organizations have a specialist available at all times.

2. It can be used for managing the payroll of doctors, nurses, doctor's assistants, and other staff members.

3. It can be used for maintaining stock of healthcare equipment and tools to ensure doctors do not lack anything while treating their patients.

All these require dong accurate calculations and maintaining data. ChatGPT in healthcare can simplify all these tasks by automating them.

ChatGPT for Providing Real-Time Insights

We all trust doctors because they know everything about their job. We know if we tell them our symptoms, they will diagnose the problem and offer a solution. After all, we place doctors on the same pedestal as God in our country.

But in order to make informed decisions and provide an accurate diagnosis, even doctors sometimes need external help. If a patient comes to them with pre-existing illnesses for which he taking treatment, the doctors have to be careful about prescribing medicines and treatment.

For instance, a patient already taking treatment for tuberculosis (TB) from a pulmonologist could be visiting a nephrologist (a kidney specialist) for another set of symptoms. Now, the nephrologist, who is not a specialist in TB has to ensure that the medicines he is prescribing for the kidney problem do not interact with the TB medicine.

Here, ChatGPT can be useful in suggesting potential drug interactions of various medicines. With the help of ChatGPT, doctors can get real-time information and offer better healthcare services.

Providing Updates on Healthcare Trends

ChatGPT in healthcare could be helpful in updating the knowledge of doctors. Although doctors spent years and years in medical school, they still need to update their knowledge as healthcare professionals.

The most recent example of knowledge updation is coronavirus. It is known that coronavirus evolves very fast. Unfortunately, its variants cause different health issues in people. So, if the alpha and beta variants showed the vital signs of fever, cough, and loss of smell/taste, the subsequent variants were different. For instance, the omicron variant caused severe back pain in many patients, which is a totally new symptom of the virus.

In this way, if doctors are not aware of the recent healthcare trends, it would be impossible to diagnose the actual problem and prescribe the right medicine. To solve this problem, healthcare professionals can use ChatGPT to remain updated with recent healthcare trends.

ChatGPT for Clinical Trials

The healthcare sector can thrive if they make quick advancements in understanding diseases and developing treatment options for them. However, it requires tons of investment in Research and Development (R&D).

An important part of conducting research is finding the right participants for clinical trials. Here, ChatGPT comes into the picture.

ChatGPT can identify the requirements of the clinical trials. Based on this information, the chatbot can find the right participants from the large pool of possible candidates. It helps in ensuring the efficacy of the trials and the accuracy of the results.

How Can Patients Use ChatGPT in Healthcare?

This section will discuss how patients can use ChatGPT in the healthcare industry.

ChatGPT for Real-Time Translation

We live in an age where patients prefer to have medical awareness. But imagine your doctor telling you about your medical condition in technical jargon. You go back home all scared because you don’t know what new health issue you have developed.

But after spending hours on the internet and researching the illness, you get to know it is a common disease.

Instead, you could use ChatGPT and use its Natural Language Processing capabilities and Deep Learning Algorithms. The chatbot uses language models and Machine Learning abilities to translate medical jargon. In this way, the patients can understand their diagnosis, treatment options, and medical instructions.

Virtual Assistants for Telemedicine

In contemporary times, when you can have instant access to various services, then why not for healthcare?

ChatGPT makes telemedicine services possible by providing virtual assistants. There are various reasons why somebody would need telemedicine services. Let’s explore some:

1. Living in remote regions: Still, a major population of the country lives in remote villages. Often, people have to travel several kilometers to access a hospital and get treatment for common illnesses. ChatGPT’s virtual assistant solves this problem by receiving healthcare services from the comfort of their homes.
2. Busy lifestyle: It is not only the patients from remote regions who have problems accessing healthcare services. Even in urban regions, working professionals have little time to spare. Because they spend most of their time working or commuting to work, they tend to ignore their health. However, they can use ChatGPT for healthcare to manage health information. It will help them take healthy clinical decisions, such as eating properly, exercising, and having a work-life balance.

ChatGPT for Patient Care and Monitoring

ChatGPT can also assist both doctors and patients in remote monitoring. In recent times, Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) technologies have become really popular. Some examples include smart watches, pulse oximeters, blood glucose meters, etc. These devices provide real-time status of the patient’s health using data. They alert the user if their health suddenly deteriorates.

But the problem is that they are expensive and not everybody can afford them. ChatGPT can be a free and easy replacement for assisting RPM.

ChatGPT for Drug Information

Patients usually take medicines and drugs from medical professionals. But sometimes certain medicines are sourced from medical or online stores. Users are unaware of the medicines they are taking.

• They could be unaware of the proper dosage and the means of administration. In other words, they should know whether they are supposed to take the medicine empty stomach or after a meal.
• Before consuming any medicine, patients should see if they are allergic to it. This information can be life-saving.
• Drug information can also be useful in looking for alternatives to certain medicines. For instance, if you don’t find the prescribed medicines, you should know if there are alternatives available or not.
• Lastly, patients should know about the side effects of the medicines.

Users can use ChatGPT to find drug information using ChatGPT and dispel these above doubts.

ChatGPT for Medical Education

Sadly, our world is full of diseases and illnesses. The coronavirus pandemic had highlighted the importance of medical and health information. During the peak of the pandemic, misinformation about the virus was rampant on social media sites. However, there is a lack of awareness among people about various diseases and illnesses.

There are two major reasons why medical awareness is important:

1. You are facing a medical health issue: When you are ill, even with a slight flu, there are certain do’s and don’ts that you have to follow. You have to ensure you take certain precautions so that you don’t pass the illness to others. Along with this, you have to perform certain activities like eating healthy and taking bed rest to get better. Such knowledge becomes crucial, especially in the medication management of chronic conditions.
2. Somebody you know is having a medical condition: When somebody we know is having a disease or illness, it is our responsibility to know how we can help them. It is important so that we can take better care of them.

For this, we can use ChatGPT and increase our awareness of the illness and how it can be dealt with. Although taking medicines from a professional doctor is important, however, medical awareness can do wonders in shortening the treatment process.

ChatGPT for Symptoms Checker and Triage Patients

ChatGPT in healthcare can be a useful tool for assessing one’s medical health condition. Before we decide which medical specialist we should see, we can assess the severity of the symptoms. For instance, if our symptoms are seasonal, then there is no need to see a specialist. In this case, a general physician can help.

At the same time, ChatGPT can be used for patient triage. The chatbot can provide questionnaires that can be used to ascertain the presence of any medical or physical illness based on symptoms and medical history.

The various uses and benefits of ChatGPT in healthcare show it can be a useful tool for both doctors and patients.