There is no doubt that artificial intelligence is already having a significant impact on many aspects of human life. One area where people may soon experience it directly is health care. All of us go to the doctor, says Sari Altschuler, a professor of English and a founding director of the Health, Humanities and Society Program at Northeastern University. Before a doctor even gets to tests and diagnosis, he or she might use AI to help with a fundamental aspect of treating patients — writing clinical notes.
“If you haven’t already been to the doctor’s office and had somebody use their phone to take your notes, I think, it’s coming,” Altschuler says. There are more than 90 different companies, she says, marketing their own AI medical scribes, or software applications that promise to free health care workers from taking notes and create more time to attend to patients’ concerns.
