The World Medical Association webinar "Introduction to AI in Medicine" took place on Thursday, 30 January 2025. The WMA has published key points from the webinar:
https://www.wma.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/FINAL-Summary-Document_-W...
Selected extracts:
'Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming healthcare by improving diagnostic accuracy, streamlining workflows, and enabling personalized treatment...'
'Despite concerns that AI will replace physicians, its primary function is to augment medical practice by increasing efficiency and improving decision-making. While AI excels in automation and data analysis, essential aspects of healthcare — such as patient interaction, ethical decision-making, and complex case management — remain irreplaceable.'
An important contribution of AI is not discussed: How AI could potentially transform the availability of reliable healthcare information for health workers and for patients/general public. Large language models such as ChatGPT are increasingly accurate in providing answers to common clinical questions, in some cases exceeding the accuracy of health professionals. We can expect to see more use of such tools by health workers and the public. Trust in tools such as ChatGPT can be expected to increase as they become more accurate and more available. Might we also expect increasing use of such tools by end-users to question claims (including misinformation) made by humans?
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org