Artificial intelligence or AI is on the rise. If you haven’t yet tried using AI, check out Perplexity or ChatGPT. It boggles the mind how quickly they can answer your questions about just about anything, including drafting a research paper, writing a poem and explaining health care options. The Harvard Gazette explores the question of whether we should want AI to help patients and health care providers with end-of-life decision-making?
For sure, AI has become better than some physicians at diagnosing patients’ conditions and arriving at a prognosis. In addition, hospitals and medical clinics use AI to analyze test results. Large-language models now permit AI to advise on patient care. Patients will make the ultimate decision.
Of course, some patients are not competent enough to guide providers as to their end-of-life choices. And, some situations are fluid, depending upon the patient’s condition or even the time of the day.
How could AI help a patient at the end of life? AI could explain what patients could expect. It could describe extremely thoroughly possible physical limitations of a diagnosis, pain, possibilities for treatment and more. Its advice would not be emotionally-laden.
If the patient at the end of life could not speak for himself or herself, AI would have a more objective perspective perhaps than providers or family members about the patient and the patient’s perspective.
In theory, AI could provide better advice than a physician about a patient’s chance of survival from a particular treatment. That advice would not dictate a particular outcome. AI probably should not be determining what a patient should do. That should happen between patient and doctor.
When there’s no doctor available, AI could provide some patient care. Could AI deliver care in compassionate ways? How would that affect the patient’s health outcome?
Here’s more from Just Care:
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