When AI Writes Back: Ethical Considerations by Physicians on AI-Drafted Patient Message Replies

TL;DR

This study explores physicians' ethical perspectives on using generative AI to draft patient message replies, highlighting concerns about oversight, transparency, consent, privacy, and responsibility in clinical settings.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into physicians' ethical considerations and responsibilities regarding AI-assisted patient communication in healthcare.

Findings

Physicians emphasize human oversight as an ethical safeguard.

Transparency and patient consent are crucial for ethical AI use.

Physicians believe responsibility primarily lies with users, not the AI technology.

Abstract

The increasing burden of responding to large volumes of patient messages has become a key factor contributing to physician burnout. Generative AI (GenAI) shows great promise to alleviate this burden by automatically drafting patient message replies. The ethical implications of this use have however not been fully explored. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a semi-structured interview study with 21 physicians who participated in a GenAI pilot program. We found that notable ethical considerations expressed by the physician participants included human oversight as ethical safeguard, transparency and patient consent of AI use, patient misunderstanding of AI's role, and patient privacy and data security as prerequisites. Additionally, our findings suggest that the physicians believe the ethical responsibility of using GenAI in this context primarily lies with users, not with the technology. These findings may provide useful insights into guiding the future implementation of GenAI in clinical practice.