Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Sep 10, 2020
Date Accepted: Nov 30, 2020
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Patient views on using artificial intelligence in medicine: trust is good, control is better
ABSTRACT
Background:
Artificial intelligence is gaining increasing importance for many medical specialties, yet data on patients’ opinions on using artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine is scarce.
Objective:
To investigate patients’ opinions on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in different capacities of the medical workflow and the level of control and oversight under which they would deem the application of AI in medicine acceptable.
Methods:
Patients scheduled for CT/MRI voluntarily participated in an anonymized questionnaire between 02/10/2020 and 05/24/2020. Patient information, confidence in physician vs. AI at different clinical tasks, opinions on control of AI, preference in case of disagreement between AI and physician and acceptance of applying AI for diseases of different severity were inquired.
Results:
229 patients participated. Patients favored physicians over AI for all clinical tasks except planning treatment according to the recent state of science. At disagreement between physician and AI on diagnosis/treatment planning, most patients would prefer the physician’s opinion over the AI (96.2% vs. 3.8% / 94.8% vs. 5.2%, respectively, P < .001). An AI supervised by a physician was considered more acceptable than an AI without oversight at diagnosis (3.90 ± 1.20 vs. 1.64 ± 1.03) and therapy (3.77 ± 1.18 vs. 1.57 ± 0.96, P < .001).
Conclusions:
Patients favored physicians over AI in most clinical capabilities and strongly preferred an application of AI with human oversight. However, patients acknowledged that AI could help physicians implying most recent scientific evidence. Application of AI in medicine should be disclosed and controlled to protect patient interests and meet ethical standards. Clinical Trial: N/A
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