Consumers in the US and UK are still a long way from a state of mind where they are freely willing to trust AI in healthcare, a survey of 2250 people in both countries has shown.
By Jonathan Carr Brown, Managing Director at Healthily
Healthily who provide an AI health navigation platform for health insurance companies, commissioned a survey in 2023 to understand whether the emergence of Chat GPT, the new conversational chatbot experience had significantly shifted attitudes in healthcare.
But the evidence suggests that healthcare remains in its own unique space where cutting-edge technologies are concerned. The survey revealed intriguing insights into the acceptance, familiarity, and trust surrounding AI technologies in the healthcare industry.
Healthily has been working on building a trusted AI health information solution for 9 years and hopes that its slow quality and safety-focused approach can move the public’s perception of AI in healthcare.
Trust matters
What the survey showed was that while 45% of the respondents expressed openness to receiving healthcare services or treatments involving AI technologies, the majority, 55% of participants, maintained scepticism, highlighting trust as a major factor impeding the widespread adoption of AI in healthcare settings.
However, a majority of the participants (53%) believed that AI could help make the health service faster and more efficient. Additionally, 51% of respondents believed that AI had the potential to save time and money within the healthcare system.
These findings reflect an optimistic view of the positive impact AI could have in addressing crucial healthcare challenges.
This may be as a result of clear “healthcare fatigue” with participants concerned about (see Fig 1 below):
- Long waiting times for appointments as a significant challenge
(71.7% women/56.5% men)
- Quality of healthcare services (28%/19%)
- Difficulty navigating healthcare (23.8%/18.7%)
- Limited treatment options (23.5%/25.7%)
- Not knowing how to self-care (22%/21.6%)
- Insufficient information (18.3%/16.8%)
Fig 1: Healthcare challenges
But there seems to be only a nascent understanding of how AI might address some of these concerns.
The majority 56% of respondents from both countries indicated they were not aware of chatbots as an AI application in healthcare. And approximately 1 in 5 participants admitted to being unaware of any AI technologies in the healthcare domain.
Respondents who felt AI could make a significant contribution to understanding what is wrong with them, personalising medicine and treatment plans, were in the low 30% range (see Fig 2 below). This suggests a need for increased awareness and education regarding the role and benefits of AI in healthcare.
Fig 2: AI Potential
The gold standard for health information in both the UK and USA remains a face-to-face consultation. Even when practising self-care, consumers still gravitate towards a professional. Close to 50% said they would ask a pharmacist, 43% would still ask a family doctor and more than a third would just ask a family member in the first instance. There is a solid 47% of people who would seek information from online health information providers, and the growing use of health videos amongst the 18 to 34-year-old age group, but AI symptom checkers are not even in the public’s conscience as a way of assessing their symptoms (see Fig 3) or ensuring the delivery of personalised tailored information.
Fig 3: Who do we rely on for self-care information
What is the major impediment to the mass take up of AI self-care tools?
Well that seems clear: lack of human interaction, particularly for the over 55 age group. With potential errors of biases associated with AI coming a close second. Even the majority of 18 to 24-year-olds would prefer to interact with a professional where healthcare is concerned. Now, clearly, that suggests there’s a large segment of the younger population who might be early adopters but they are also the segment of society that are the healthiest. Interestingly, data privacy is not as high on the agenda as the media coverage of technology might lead us to believe (see Fig 4 below).
Fig 4: What concerns us
This leads us to the last finding of the survey. We still have a lot of work to do to get the public to embrace AI in healthcare. Our survey only found that just over 20% of people felt they were “definitely” open to trying AI healthcare approaches. Figures that drop to 16% in the 55 to 65+ age group. The best this group could muster is 40% plus saying that they might at least “consider” using AI.
Hardly a ringing endorsement for a technological revolution that has been with us for a decade. Clearly companies like Healthily who have invested heavily in trustworthiness are in a better position to deliver. This investment includes:
- creating bespoke medically verified databases
- writing clinically reviewed content
- building a quality management system
- publishing the first medical AI explainability statement
- receiving the first class 1 medical device certificate
- submitting to independent review
Not all AI is the same
Chat GPT-style large language model conversational AI chatbots can now be built in a week but trustworthy AI health tools, such as Dot, take years to nurture. In our case 9 years.
This survey provides valuable insights for the burgeoning healthcare AI industry into the public's perceptions and expectations surrounding AI in healthcare. While there are signs of growing acceptance of AI in the industry, a significant portion of the population remains sceptical, emphasizing the importance of building trust.
By addressing concerns, raising awareness, and demonstrating the benefits, AI has the potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry and improve patient outcomes.
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