{"id":147415,"date":"2018-06-27T19:12:02","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T19:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/babylon-claims-its-chatbot-beats-gps-at-medical-exam\/"},"modified":"2018-06-27T19:12:02","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T19:12:02","slug":"babylon-claims-its-chatbot-beats-gps-at-medical-exam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/babylon-claims-its-chatbot-beats-gps-at-medical-exam\/","title":{"rendered":"Babylon claims its chatbot beats GPs at medical exam"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"BabyloneImage copyright Babylon
Image caption The artificial intelligence software provides what it determines to be the most likely diagnoses <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Claims that a chatbot can diagnose medical conditions as accurately as a GP have sparked a row between the software's creators and UK doctors.<\/p>\n

Babylon, the company behind the NHS GP at Hand app, says its follow-up software achieves medical exam scores that are on-par with human doctors.<\/p>\n

It revealed the artificial intelligence bot at an event held at the Royal College of Physicians.<\/p>\n

But another medical professional body said it doubted the AI's abilities.<\/p>\n

"No app or algorithm will be able to do what a GP does," said the Royal College of General Practitioners.<\/p>\n

"An app might be able to pass an automated clinical knowledge test - but the answer to a clinical scenario isn't always cut and dried.<\/p>\n

"There are many factors to take into account, a great deal of risk to manage, and the emotional impact a diagnosis might have on a patient to consider."<\/p>\n

Image caption The chatbot was unveiled at an event in London <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But NHS England chairman Sir Malcolm Grant - who attended the unveil - appeared to be more receptive.<\/p>\n

"It is difficult to imagine the historical model of a general practitioner, which is after all the foundation stone of the NHS and medicine, not evolving," he said.<\/p>\n

"We are at a tipping point of how we provide care. <\/p>\n

"This is why we are paying very close attention to what you've been doing and what other companies are doing."<\/p>\n

Higher score<\/h2>\n

The chatbot AI has been tested on what Babylon said was a representative set of questions from the Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners exam.<\/p>\n

The MRCGP is the final test set for trainee GPs to be accredited by the organisation.<\/p>\n

Babylon said that the first time its AI sat the exam, it achieved a score of 81%.<\/p>\n

It added that the average mark for human doctors was 72%, based on results logged between 2012 and 2017.<\/p>\n

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    But the RCGP said it had not provided Babylon with the test's questions and had no way to verify the claim.<\/p>\n

    "The college examination questions that we actually use aren't available in the public domain," added Prof Martin Marshall, one of the RCGP's vice-chairs.<\/p>\n

    Babylon said it had used example questions published directly by the college and that some had indeed been made publicly available.<\/p>\n

    "We would be delighted if they could formally share with us their examination papers so I could replicate the exam exactly. That would be great," Babylon chief executive Ali Parsa told the BBC.<\/p>\n

    To further test the AI, Babylon partnered with doctors at two US organisations - Stanford Primary Care and Yale New Haven Health - as well as doctors from the Royal College of Physicians.<\/p>\n

    It said they had developed 100 real-life scenarios to test the AI.<\/p>\n

    The company added that it expected its chatbot's diagnostic skills would further improve as a consequence.<\/p>\n

    Probable causes<\/h2>\n

    Babylon has demonstrated its chatbot being used as a voice-controlled "skill" on Amazon's Alexa platform.<\/p>\n

    While Babylon's existing GP at Hand service refers users to a human doctor if the app suspects a medical problem, the new chatbot makes a diagnosis itself - offering several possible scenarios along with a percentage-based estimate of each one being correct.<\/p>\n

    Image copyright Babylon
    Image caption The GP at Hand app launched in late-2017 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    "The suggestion that this can replace doctors is the key issue for us,' said Prof Marshall.<\/p>\n

    But Mr Parsa disputed the idea that doctors would be left out in the cold, explaining that the intention was still for a medic to follow up the AI's diagnoses.<\/p>\n

    "We are fully aware that an artificial intelligence on its own cannot look after a patient. And that is why we complement it with physicians," he said.<\/p>\n

    "It is never going to replace a doctor, but just to help."<\/p>\n

    Image copyright Babylon
    Image caption Babylon envisages that a human doctor would make use of its chatbot's diagnosis within a follow-up video chat <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Rwandan connection<\/h2>\n

    Babylon's stated ambition is to deliver affordable health care to people all over the world.<\/p>\n

    Since 2016, it has been working in partnership with the government of Rwanda. <\/p>\n

    The country's health care service was decimated after the genocide in 1994, in which more than 800,000 people were killed.<\/p>\n

    Babylon has two million registered users in Rwanda and has conducted tens of thousands of consultations. <\/p>\n

    Image caption Nurses in Rwanda have helped train Babylon's software by using it to diagnose people in the country <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Since smartphone use is not widespread in the country, people currently call nurses who follow symptom-checking prompts that appear to them via computer screens.<\/p>\n

    Information gathered as a result has been used to improve the chatbot.<\/p>\n

    BBC Click will have more on Babylon's work in Rwanda on this weekend's television show. Find out more at BBC.com\/Click and @BBCClick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Image copyright BabylonImage caption The artificial intelligence software provides what it determines to be the most likely diagnoses Claims that a chatbot can diagnose medical conditions as accurately as a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":147416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}