A study led by Penn State researchers suggests AI doctors that remember patients’ social information and offer privacy controls could enhance satisfaction, paving the way for personalized AI-driven health care.
Artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine could revolutionize patient care, but to do so effectively, these AI systems might need to get more personal than human doctors. A new study led by Penn State researchers suggests that AI doctors who remember patients’ social details can boost patient satisfaction if they also provide privacy control.
Published in the journal Communication Research, the study highlights a potential game-changer in the burgeoning field of AI-driven health care.
“We tend to think of AI doctors as machines that are antiseptic and generic,” S. Shyam Sundar, Evan Pugh University Professor and James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects at Penn State, said in a news release. “What we show in this study is that it’s important for these AI systems to not just talk about a patient’s medical history but also to individuate them socially by recalling certain non-medical information about them, such as their occupation and hobbies.”
To explore the impact of a doctor’s knowledge about a patient’s social or medical history on patient satisfaction, the research team conducted an experiment with 382 online participants. They interacted with a medical chatbot posing as either a human doctor, an AI doctor or an AI-assisted human doctor across two simulated visits spaced two weeks apart.
During the initial visit, the participants shared personal details, including their occupation, family relationships, dietary habits and favorite activities while discussing diet, fitness, lifestyle, sleep and mental health. The doctor then provided general health recommendations.
On the second visit, the doctor either recalled the patient’s previously shared information or asked for it again, offering half of the participants the option to save their visit records to the online platform. Post-visit, participants rated their satisfaction via an online questionnaire.
The findings were compelling: the participants scored AI doctors higher when they recalled social information and offered privacy control at the visit’s end. Human doctors, conversely, did not need to recall any specific patient information to maintain a close relationship with patients.
“When an AI doctor recalls a patient’s social information, it is perceived as putting more effort into individuation, which leads to higher patient satisfaction, but only when the patient has privacy control,” lead author Cheng Chen, a former doctoral student of mass communications at Penn State and now an assistant professor of communication design at Elon University, said in the news release. ““This was surprising because AI systems treat all data the same, but patients see it differently. They perceived it as the doctor putting in more effort to recall the patient’s social information.”
Sundar emphasized the importance of privacy control for patients.
“Patients still want the AI system to provide them privacy control,” he added. “It’s like, as long as you give me control over my data, I appreciate you knowing about my social life and appreciate the effort you put in.”
The implications of this research are significant for AI system design in health care. Better satisfaction through personalized interaction might not only improve patient compliance but could also lead to more positive health outcomes.
“Recalling patient social information may lead to better satisfaction and patient compliance and more positive health outcomes,” added Cheng.
Co-author Joe Walther, the Bertelsen Presidential Chair in Technology and Society and a distinguished professor of communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara, related the findings to a broader understanding of what it means to be known.
“When I tell a student her homework was better than many other students’, it’s just a numerical comparison,” Walther said. “When I tell her that her homework is better than she did earlier in the semester, she knows I know her, that she’s not just a number. The same goes for doctors: Am I just the latest lab tests, or am I unique?”
This study, including contributions from Mengqi Liao of the University of Georgia, not only enhances our understanding of AI in medicine but also challenges us to think about the future of health care interaction, weighing personalization and privacy as critical components for success.