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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

> If it sucks and hallucinates information it's not going to go live anywhere.

It hallucinates and it's live in many places. My doctor uses it.

AFAICT the hallucination rate is fairly low. It's transcription and summarization which has a lower hallucination rate than when it's asked for an answer.

It's massively better than the alternative. Taking the time to write down proper notes is the difference between 4 patients per hour and 6 and a commensurate drop in income. So notes virtually always get short-changed.

Very occasionally hallucinated notes are better than notes that are almost always incomplete.

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What about increasing the supply of doctors rather than decreasing the time they spend with patients?

I question the underlying premise that efficiency needs to increase.

Because the USA is for-profit healthcare industry they need to optimise and increase efficiency. That's the only way to make the numbers go up. Therefore fewer doctors, fewer nurses, fewer administrators (maybe), and more paying patients.

> more paying patients

that's a chilling thought; don't give them ideas

Surprising that you imply they haven't already been capitalizing (ha!) on that idea since the 1970s :D

It's no better in other countries. Other country's health care systems are typically monopsonies, which means we get crappier results for lower prices. So instead of the doctor choosing to do 6 patients per hour instead of 4, it's the government.

In the case of summarizing it is not time spent with patient is time recording what was discussed.

I recently heard a talk from doctolib (French company that among other offers now the summarization service to doctors) and they mentioned that before AI, doctors were writing on average 144 characters after a patient visit. I doubt half a tweet is the ideal text to convey information.

Note taking is not about the time spent with patients. It's about keeping a good record for next time and insurance and is a major reason for physician burnout. Some doctors will finish up charting when after hours.

Yes physicians could still see fewer patients but filling out their mandatory notes is annoying regardless of it's a manageable amount of patients or a work extra hours amount.

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