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NEJM AI Grand Rounds

Health Care at the Breaking Point: Dr. Zak Kohane Returns to NEJM AI Grand Rounds

Jan 15, 2025
Dr. Zak Kohane, a leading figure in AI and medicine, returns to delve into the pressing challenges within the healthcare system. He highlights the Human Values Project and the pivotal role of AI in bridging gaps caused by doctor shortages. The conversation touches on philosophical discussions about machine psychology in healthcare and the evolving dynamics of doctor-patient relationships. Kohane also emphasizes how multimodal data and AI tools can enhance decision-making, setting the stage for advancements in medical diagnostics and education.
01:08:28

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

  • AI's capacity to assess patient needs is promising, but it must serve as a complementary tool to human doctors, not a replacement.
  • The Human Values Project emphasizes the importance of aligning AI development with ethical considerations and human values in medical decision-making.

Deep dives

Synthetic Patient Histories and AI Evaluation

A significant part of the episode focuses on the creation of 1,000 synthetic patient histories, from which 200 were randomly selected for human expert evaluation on who should receive immediate medical attention. This evaluation was then compared with the decisions made by advanced AI models, including GPT-4 and Claude. The discussion emphasized not only the agreement between the AI and the human expert but also highlighted the importance of consistency within the AI's assessments over multiple evaluations. Some models, such as GPT-4, showed improvement in alignment with expert decisions, while others, like Claude, exhibited decreased concordance, raising concerns about reliability.

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