A new Wolters Kluwer Health survey, released on April 16, finds that 40% of U.S. physicians are “ready to use generative AI (GenAI) this year when interacting with patients at the point-of-care.”
These finding suggest a quick acceptance of GenAI—68% said “they have changed their views over the last year and are now more likely to think that GenAI would be beneficial to healthcare.”
A press release on the survey says, “Physicians, however, are wary of which GenAI tools they would be comfortable using, with 91% of respondents saying they need to know the GenAI sourced materials were created by doctors and medical experts before using it in clinical decisions. Similarly, 89% report they need vendors to be transparent about where information came from, who created it, and how it was sourced.”
Further, “With healthcare facing challenges with staffing shortages and burnout, physicians see many benefits to applying GenAI in the care continuum. When asked how GenAI could support decision making or improve interactions at the point-of-care:
- “Four in five (81%) physicians say GenAI will improve care team interaction with patients.
- Over half believe GenAI will save them 20% or more time.
- Over two-thirds (68%) say it can save time by quickly searching medical literature.
- Three in five (59%) say it can save time by summarizing data about patients from the electronic health record (EHR).
- Only 3% do not believe GenAI will improve interactions with patients.”
The press release went on to detail results of this survey with a Wolters Kluwer survey of U.S. consumers conducted in late 2023. “Two-thirds of physicians say that patients would be confident in GenAI results to make clinical decisions while just over half of patients report they would be confident,” the release adds. “When physicians were asked if they believe patients would be concerned about the use of GenAI in a diagnosis, only one out of five physicians said yes. Conversely, when asked directly, four out of five Americans reported they would be concerned, suggesting a wide gap in perceptions about GenAI readiness among health consumers.”
Lastly, regarding guidance on GenAI, 37% of respondents say there are currently no guidelines in place at their organizations about using the technology. And 46% of respondents said that they do not know of any guidelines.
