The AI Will See You Now: Feasibility and Acceptability of a Conversational AI Medical Interviewing System

Background: Primary care physicians (PCPs) are often limited in their ability to collect detailed medical histories from patients, which can lead to errors or delays in diagnosis. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) show promise in augmenting current human-driven methods of collecting personal and family histories; however, such tools are largely unproven.

Objective: The main aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a conversational AI medical interviewing system among patients.

Methods: The study was conducted among adult patients empaneled at a family medicine clinic within a large academic medical center in Northern California. Participants were asked to test an AI medical interviewing system, which uses a conversational avatar and chatbot to capture medical histories and identify patients with risk factors. After completing an interview with the AI system, participants completed a web-based survey inquiring about the performance of the system, the ease of using the system, and attitudes toward the system. Responses on a 7-point Likert scale were collected and evaluated using descriptive statistics.

Results: A total of 20 patients with a mean age of 50 years completed an interview with the AI system, including 12 females (60%) and 8 males (40%); 11 were White (55%), 8 were Asian (40%), and 1 was Black (5%), and 19 had at least a bachelor's degree (95%). Most participants agreed that using the system to collect histories could help their PCPs have a better understanding of their health (16/20, 80%) and help them stay healthy through identification of their health risks (14/20, 70%). Those who reported that the system was clear and understandable, and that they were able to learn it quickly, tended to be younger; those who reported that the tool could motivate them to share more comprehensive histories with their PCPs tended to be older.

Conclusions: In this feasibility and acceptability pilot of a conversational AI medical interviewing system, the majority of patients believed that it could help clinicians better understand their health and identify health risks; however, patients were split on the effort required to use the system, and whether AI should be used for medical interviewing. Our findings suggest areas for further research, such as understanding the user interface factors that influence ease of use and adoption, and the reasons behind patients' attitudes toward AI-assisted history-taking.