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In patient portals, people prefer AI

In patient portals, people prefer AI

Politico11-03-2025
THE LAB
Duke patients in a new study prefer patient portal messages written using artificial intelligence — until they learn AI wrote them.
Those findings are from a paper published today in JAMA Network Open, in which researchers asked survey participants, comprised of mostly patients, to compare clinical vignettes written by ChatGPT and human clinicians.
Participants generally preferred the AI-drafted messages, which tended to be longer and more detailed, likely making them seem more empathetic than those written by humans. But when participants were told that humans wrote the messages or when no author was specified, their preference shifted to greater satisfaction than when they were told the messages were AI generated.
This suggests patients assume communications are written by humans unless told otherwise.
Even so: Researchers surveyed more than 1,400 patients and community members ages 18 and older from the Duke University Health System in North Carolina.
Since participants were from a single health system and tended to be older, highly educated and white, the findings can't be extrapolated to the general population. People most familiar with generative AI tend to be younger and male, so results might differ with a different survey population.
Why it matters: Health systems are grappling with whether to disclose AI use to patients, the study authors say. At the same time, doctors' administrative burdens, including responding to patient portal messages, are growing and AI could lighten their workload.
Bottom line: The study was designed to measure how transparent AI use affects the patient experience. Seventy-five percent of respondents said they were happy with the messages they received, regardless of who authored the communications, whether the writer was disclosed or how serious the clinical topic was.
That suggests being transparent about AI use doesn't drastically hurt patient confidence.
'These findings give us confidence to use technologies like this to potentially help our clinicians reduce burnout, while still doing the right thing and telling our patients when we use AI,' Dr. Anand Chowdhury, study co-author and assistant professor at Duke University School of Medicine, said in a statement.
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AROUND THE AGENCIES
Dr. Douglas Kelly, the FDA's deputy center director for science and chief scientist of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, is leaving the agency.
His departure is further evidence of the agency's brain drain.
In a departing post on LinkedIn, he said he helped recruit senior talent including Troy Tazbaz, former director of the Digital Health Center of Excellence, and Dr. Ross Segan, director of the CDRH's Office of Product Evaluation and Quality, from technology and medical device companies.
Kelly, a venture capitalist before he joined the FDA in 2020, was also responsible for the Total Product Lifestyle Advisory Program, which pushed the FDA to engage with device makers early on in the development process to help more products make it through authorization.
Why it matters: CDRH has recently lost key talent who were working to make the agency more nimble and more capable of reviewing advanced medical technology, particularly AI. The Department of Government Efficiency made cuts, which included firing Segan, to the CDRH in February.
The medical device industry, which pays medical device user fees that cover the salaries of the staff who review devices, responded negatively to the cuts.
'If these cuts are not reversed, there is no question that it will slow down the process for new technologies to get to market, particularly in health care AI and the most innovative therapies,' Scott Whitaker, CEO of the medical device trade organization AdvaMed, told POLITICO.
Some staff have since been asked to return.
What's next: Kelly is heading back into the venture world, according to a person familiar with his plans, who was granted anonymity.
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