AI could be used to reduce waiting times in A&E, research suggests

Chatbots could be used to diagnose patients in a bid to reduce waiting times in emergency departments, researchers have indicated. It comes after a study found that ChatGPT, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), 'performed well' in generating a list of diagnoses for patients and suggesting the most likely option. Researchers in the Netherlands entered the records of 30 patients who visited an emergency department in 2022, as well as anonymous doctors' notes, into ChatGPT versions 3.5 and 4.0. The AI analysis was compared to two clinicians who made a diagnosis based on the same information, both with and without laboratory data. When lab data was included, doctors had the correct answer in their top five differential diagnoses in 87% of cases, compared with 97% for ChatGPT 3.5 and 87% for ChatGPT 4.0.