It’s the trust, silly – patients need to experience real AI benefits
As healthcare organizations rush headlong into implementing AI, consumers’ confidence in the technology needs to be bolstered.
Healthcare executives increasingly are tuned into the potential for artificial intelligence. It’s been the hot topic at healthcare conferences for at least five years.
However, being steeped in knowledge of technology sometimes can beget an assumption that everyone has the same level of knowledge and trust in the technological capabilities you’re in love with.
That’s not really the case with AI. Consumers have a fear of what the unbridled use of AI can do. The reasons may not be grounded in detailed understanding of the technology, and it may be buttressed by unfounded fears, but it’s there nonetheless.
Thus, building confidence in consumers in the use of AI in healthcare isn’t a gimme. It will take time to build trust, and it will take patience in successfully demonstrating AI’s value, building progress in acceptance through bite-sized initiatives that resonate with capabilities that consumers actively want.
Where AI isn’t being accepted
A recent survey suggests that consumers are showing more concern about AI than they had even a couple years ago.
Results of a newly released survey by the Pew Research Center demonstrate the growing concern, even at the most basic level of what constitutes a believable source of trustworthy information.
Data demonstrate that Americans turn to healthcare providers the most for accurate medical advice. By contrast, only 36 percent of respondents say they have used social media, and only 22 percent say they’ve used artificial intelligence chatbots to gather health information. By contrast, 85 percent of the more than 5,000 adults polled said they get health advice from a provider, with 95 percent of those finding that advice extremely or somewhat accurate.
And another survey of 1,007 adults by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center this year found that only 42 percent are open to AI being used as part of their care. That’s a decline from 52 percent when the school first conducted the survey in 2024. Additionally, belief among survey respondents AI can make some health processes more efficient also fell, going from 64 percent in 2024 to 55 percent in this year’s survey.
In part, the decline in confidence is a natural drop that mirrors the fluctuations predicted by the Gartner Hype Cycle, and it’s not unusual, contends Ravi Tripathi, MD, chief health informatics officer at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center.
But consumers aren’t throwing AI completely into the trash bin, the survey found. Some 62 percent use AI to help understand symptoms before deciding whether to seek medical care; 44 percent use AI to help explain test results or a medical diagnosis; 25 percent use AI to compare treatment options or make decision on treatment; and 20 percent use AI to prepare for a medical appointment.
Where consumers might be won over
This is not to say that consumers are petrified about any use of AI by healthcare organizations. Rather, they are looking for providers and payers to implement systems that make sense, provide benefits and help them better navigate their care journey.
Two recent announcements in the past week highlight potential uses of AI that scratch where consumers are itching.
In one case, Andor Health announced a major expansion of its ThinkAndor multimodal agentic capabilities, enabling voice-based and conversational patient interactions across the patient journey.
“By leveraging advanced agentic AI, the platform is transforming how patients access care, significantly reducing the administrative burden on health systems while delivering faster, higher-quality outcomes,” the company says. The hope is to not have siloed applications of AI to improve patient conversations and better rationalize the actions they take, “orchestrating the last-mile clinical workflows.”
The hope is that better AI-enabled patient conversations that help provide specific direction “that feels intuitive rather than clinical.” If that can be achieved, patients could feel they’re receiving better guidance, and organizations could benefit by better managing patients’ communications and expectations.
In another application, a company is launching an AI-powered “digital companion” intended to provide more support to individuals experiencing persistent pain.
Paindrainer AB, based in Sweden, contends that its Relivra solution is built on an agentic AI model, combining a neural network and a conversational large language model, working within a structured educational program to give users with round-the-clock guidance and support.
The hope is that Relivra can offer a dynamic and personalized experience that supports users in managing their pain, with the key benefit of “engaging individuals in their everyday lives.” The product, available as an app, can run on both Apple and Android devices.
If it can deliver, the solution may help patients dealing with intractable, persistent pain to better understand its causes and find strategies to better manage it.
While a wide range of AI-based approaches are in use or development, organizations are looking for ways to achieve fast results and better woo patients and consumers to trust the technology. Like in any other technological implementation, building trust is slow, but necessary, for ultimate success.
Fred Bazzoli is the Editor in Chief of Health Data Management.