Artificial intelligence will soon be able to write doctor’s letters

Artificial intelligence will soon be able to write doctor’s letters – at least according to the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS). The goal: A so-called doctor’s letter generator that relieves medical staff of the work.

Since the release of ChatGPT, artificial intelligence has been on everyone’s lips. Previously, the topic was not really tangible for many people. However, more and more people are now using AI systems. So far, it has played a minor role in everyday practice.

But that is likely to change soon – at least according to researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS). ChatGPT and Co. could make life easier for staff, especially in the overburdened healthcare system.

Doctor’s letter generator: Artificial intelligence should write doctor’s letters

To do this, the researchers looked at so-called Large Language Models (LLM). The background: the increasing flood of information in the medical sector. Algorithms could process these amounts of data faster and more reliably than humans.

For initial field tests, the researchers therefore sat down with specialist staff from various clinics. The goal: The development of an AI generator that will be able to write doctor’s letters from 2024. If medical staff discharge patients from the hospital, a discharge letter is mandatory.

This includes a summary of the diagnosis and treatment. In the future, artificial intelligence will process these documents and combine them into a doctor’s letter.

Doctor’s letters from KI: Data protection not finally clarified

On the one hand, this should reduce the effort for medical professionals. On the other hand, patients could leave the hospital more quickly. Because people often wait for the necessary documents. If an AI generates the doctor’s note, which a human only has to check, many processes could be accelerated.

However, there are some challenges with the method. It has not yet been conclusively clarified how data protection can be guaranteed with such a tool. Such a system would process highly sensitive information and would therefore be subject to the strict rules of the GDPR.

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