Dr GPT
I've been frustratingly ill for the last two weeks.
Usually, I have a relatively robust immune system, but this year for some reason I've fallen victim to a couple of pretty nasty colds. Maybe having a baby daughter doesn't help…
I’ve found myself interacting with ChatGPT on all of my symptoms and the potential solutions. I have also seen a human doctor, but to be honest, I think the ChatGPT experience was just as good. The only thing it lacks is the ability to prescribe, but in terms of useful input on what might be going wrong and what I can do to alleviate the symptoms (ex prescriptions), it's pretty spot-on.
I thought similarly when my daughter was ill with a nasty cough a couple of weeks back. In the UK, we have a non-emergency helpline called 111. It's for things that you feel are potentially serious but not quite meeting the emergency threshold. We called it for her, but the line was so bad and the speaker’s accent so strong that neither my wife nor I could understand what they were saying. Again, ChatGPT came to the rescue.
Given the extent of strain on public health systems, I would be amazed if we're not in a world where ChatGPT or a similar LLM is the first line of defence in accessing healthcare in this country within the next 5 years. People are using Dr. Google anyway, and an LLM based search could be a much more accurate and synthesised version of that.
The NHS could fine-tune a model based on its medical guidance and other UK based public bodies, and I'm sure it could deliver an excellent product that alleviates a huge amount of the strain, freeing up resources to focus on follow-ups, acute issues and emergencies.
People are typically resistant to change, but I think if you were designing the NHS from scratch and LLMs were available, you'd build them in at the very heart. It would be crazy not to. It needs to be done in a safe way, and in a way that maintains access to people who are less digitally savvy. But this is absolutely the direction of travel and I'm looking forward to seeing it come to life.