AI recommendations more often rated as optimal compared with treating physician decisions
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, April 7, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Artificial intelligence (AI) recommendations are more often rated as better quality than final recommendations of physicians for virtual care visits made by patients with respiratory, urinary, vaginal, eye, or dental symptoms, according to study published online April 4 in the Annals of Internal Medicine to coincide with the Internal Medicine Meeting, the annual meeting of the American College of Physicians, held from April 3 to 5 in New Orleans.
In a retrospective cohort study, Dan Zeltzer, Ph.D., from Tel Aviv University in Israel, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study to compare initial AI recommendations with final recommendations of physicians who had access to the AI recommendations and may or may not have reviewed them. Data were collected from a virtual primary and urgent care clinic. Data were included for 461 physician-managed visits for adults with respiratory, urinary, vaginal, eye, or dental symptoms from June 12 to July 14, 2024, with AI recommendations of sufficient confidence and complete medical records.
The researchers found that for 56.8 percent of the visits, initial AI and final physician recommendations were concordant. AI recommendations were more often rated as optimal compared with treating physician decisions (77.1 versus 67.1 percent). Quality scores were equal, better for AI, and better for treating physicians in 67.9, 20.8, and 11.3 percent of cases, respectively.
“AI can enhance clinical decision-making for common acute symptoms in a virtual urgent care setting,” the authors write. “Thoughtful integration of AI into clinical practice, combining its strengths with those of physicians, could improve the quality of care.”
The study was funded by K Health.
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