Envisioning an artificial intelligence documentation assistant for future primary care consultations: A co-design...

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Technology
• Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
• Primary Care Research

Background:

• General practitioners' perspectives on artificial intelligence (AI) documentation assistants are crucial for understanding their integration into primary care.
• Current primary care consultations face challenges that future AI tools may address.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the potential roles of AI documentation assistants in primary care consultations.
• To identify implications for doctors, patients, healthcare systems, and technology design from the viewpoint of general practitioners.

Main Methods:

• Three co-design workshops were conducted with 16 general practitioners.
• Methods included affinity diagramming, brainwriting, and video prototyping.
• Workshop data were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using inductive thematic analysis.

Main Results:

• Key themes emerged: professional autonomy, human-AI collaboration, and new models of care.
• Implications included medico-legal concerns, distributed care models with empowered patients, and the centrality of human empathy.
• A critique of AI initiatives focused on efficiency over patient care quality was noted.

Conclusions:

• AI documentation assistants are expected to become integral to primary care.
• Human supervision of AI is necessary until autonomous performance is proven reliable.
• Developing and evaluating diverse human-AI collaboration models is essential for patient and doctor safety and autonomy.