5 ms·
A friend of mine had gotten an imaging test done recently, and had to wait 7 days to have her doctor review it. Meanwhile, she got the report and was paralyzed
by atonse 2y ago
A friend of mine had gotten an imaging test done recently, and had to wait 7 days to have her doctor review it. Meanwhile, she got the report and was paralyzed with worry by some of the words (like high risk for ____, etc).
I feel like this is an area where AI/LLMs/whatever can actually help triage test results to tell doctors "hey you really should look at this test result first, it looks concerning" - this would happen in a way that you can't do with other bloodwork (which returns numbers on a scale).
Most radiology reports are just written words, so LLMs could potentially use that to triage and help alert the care provider to prioritize it, so patients aren't sitting there worried for days on end until a doc analyzes it.
- quantumwoke 2y agoQuestion to which I don't have the answer: does an instant LLM response that says you may have cancer, infection or some other malady based on a report alleviate your suspicions? Or would you rather wait for a measured discussion with a professional? Personally speaking, I might be fooled into contacting my doctor inappropriately citing a false positive from DrGPT which seems inefficient.
- unixfg 2y agoMy previous PCP used a system that would tell me my results are in, but I wasn’t allowed to view them until the doctor called me to talk about it.
- atonse 2y agoRight and in this case the doc hadn’t called in many days which I feel was negligent on their part, leaving the patient to self analyze.
- thomasfedb 2y agoArguably the issue in your friend’s case is providing the patient with a document that’s not designed for them. Radiology reports are written with a particular audience in mind. They are also written with a particular medicolegal perspective, which the intended audience will appreciate. I often give my patients copies of their results/reports, which gives me an opportunity to explain them. If we are going to send reports to patients directly, maybe they need to be written differently? Who should pay for that different report to be written/checked? We already have AI tools for prioritising the order some tests are processed in (e.g. which X-Rays the radiologist looks at first). But once the report is written the author has a responsibility to ensure any urgent result is escalated. As a requester (I order tests), if I result needs urgent action within days or less, I expect a phone call to myself or another doctor in the practice.
- atonse 2y agoI totally agree that we’re not the audience. But when a patient gets a result and their doc doesn’t call them for nearly a week, the patient is left to fill in the blanks in the worst way possible. In this scenario, the practice screwed up by taking so long.