Is anyone using AI to manage their health?

[Alies Maybee]

I am being asked to talk on AI in a number of places mostly Toronto area. I don't use AI for health since I don't have a condition but have heard some of you do use it. I am most interested in learning the good, the bad and the ugly.

Please let me know and we can have further conversations. Alies

[Sheri McCready]

@Alies-Maybee yes, i have multiple health issues related to a genetic defect. I would be interested in a conversation

[Alies Maybee]

@Sheri-McCready do you actually use AI currently to manage your health? Or are you hoping to learn how to?

[Joan Tu]

Hi Alies, I do use AI to manage my health, however I use it for broader collective information purposes more so than for individual purposes.

Here are some examples:

Collective purpose: I used ChatGPT as well as other online sources to create this set of dashboards to show the differences between different common skin conditions that clinicians are confused about. (I am a person with a skin condition with other family members who have skin conditions.) This serves the broader scientific community as well as patients. https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/joan.lee.tu/vizzes

Individual purpose: I use AI tools occasionally to search for health advice information, for example, about minor ailments or nuisance issues. I also use Facebook and sometimes it shows me posts related to these issues with people's comments that have been very helpful in some cases. This is a form of using AI as well.

The biggest issue that I have encountered, which scientists have noted, is that these AI tools often omit information that the user would have wanted included. The omissions are significant. I see a lot of posts about the limitations of AI tools for health purposes on LinkedIn. I could try to dig up some of the more informative posts, however that may take some time.

[Don Grant]

@Alies-Maybee, yes. I have successful experiences in this realm and I’m happy to have a private chat

[Kim Giroux]

@Alies-Maybee I have recently been using it extensively and would be happy to chat.

[Cristyana Aloysious]

@Alies-Maybee

Hi Alies,

I am very active in the AI space and have been recently creating a resource for Patients to use if they were to use AI in their healthcare. I would be happy to connect and/or support your talks.

[Alies Maybee]

@Sheri-McCready I will send you an email with some times to talk. Hope this works for you and many thanks.

[Alies Maybee]

@Joan-Tu thanks so much for sharing, very helpful.

[Alies Maybee]

@Don-Grant I will send you an email with some times to talk. Hope this works for you and many thanks.

[Alies Maybee]

@Kim-Giroux I will send you an email with some times to talk. Hope this works for you and many thanks.

[Alies Maybee]

@Cristyana-Aloysious as always, a pleasure to hear from you. I will contact you by email to follow up.

[Alies Maybee]

All, I have incorporated your stories about how you use AI in the panel talk I did last week at the FHLIP. Special thanks to @Kim-Giroux who talked with me at length. The audience was surprised and amazed that "members of the public" are actually using AI and for more than just a better search tool.

At the conference I became aware that AI is bursting into healthcare in a bunch of new and mostly beneficial ways. As patient/caregiver partners, we need to be part of the decisions being made. For that, we need to learn more. PAN is working on making sure we can do that. Thanks, again.