A smartphone ‘Artificial Intelligence’ app is as good as a doctor for diagnosing patients, its manufacturer has claimed.
It works by asking patients 30 questions about their pain, symptoms and other complaints to come up with a possible illness.
This can be anything from a tension headache to stomach cancer and patients are told to see a doctor immediately, if necessary.
The app has been developed by a controversial private firm, Babylon Health, which also offers GP appointments via Skype.
A smartphone ‘Artificial Intelligence’ app is as good as a doctor for diagnosing patients, its manufacturer has claimed. It works by asking patients 30 questions about their pain, symptoms and other complaints to come up with a possible illness (stock image)
A trial presented by the company last night showed the app performed better in GP assessment exams than an average GP.
The app scored 81 per cent in the diagnosis section of the ‘MRCGP’ exam, a rigorous test for trainee GPs which they have to pass to qualify.
This was significantly higher than the 72 per cent average score of trainee GPs.
But doctors’ leaders have disputed Babylon’s claims as ‘dubious’ and insisted the app could never replace a face-to-face GP consultation.
They are worried the app would miss some of the more subtle symptoms and give false reassurance to patients who are seriously ill.
Even so, the Government wants to make the NHS a world-leader in the use of technology and dramatically increase the role of artificial intelligence.
The app has been developed by a controversial private firm, Babylon Health, which also offers GP appointments via Skype. Doctors’ leaders have disputed Babylon’s claims as ‘dubious’ and insisted the app could never replace a face-to-face GP consultation (stock image)
Last month Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt called for additional funding to be invested in ‘ambitious’ ideas to ‘lead a revolution worldwide.’
The chief executive of Babylon Health, Ali Parsa, insisted the app was never intended to replace GPs.
He said it was probably better at diagnosing certain cancers than GPs, who will only see a handful of patients with cancer each year.
He said: ‘We don’t have enough doctors in the world to deal with the demands of the patients. Also with our doctors, their quality is varied.
‘An average GP, how often do they see bowel cancer. It happens in one in 3,000 patients and a GP will see it maybe once every two or three years.
‘Nine out of ten patients we can deal with through artificial intelligence or with remote consultation. That massively reduces the burden on the system and that allows us to see a lot more people.’
But Dr Richard Vautrey, chair of the British Medical Association’s GP committee chair said: ‘AI may have a place in the tools doctors use to support and treat patients, but it cannot replace the essential elements of the doctor-patient relationship which is at the heart of medicine.
‘However you develop these systems, they cannot replace the physical relationship between a GP or a doctor and that patient in front of them.
‘Trying to say that this will provide a diagnosis is missing the much wider points of what happens in general practice and hospitals as well, where you have got patients presenting with a multitude of different problems.
‘You have to use the skills that you have developed over many years of training to be able to really work your way through the myriad of symptoms, concerns and expectations that patient might have.’
Professor Martin Marshall, vice chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: ‘The potential of technology to support doctors to deliver the best possible patient care is fantastic, but at the end of the day, computers are computers, and GPs are highly-trained medical professionals: the two can’t be compared and the former may support but will never replace the latter.
‘Much of what GPs do is based on a trusting relationship between a patient and a doctor, and research has shown GPs have a ‘gut feeling’ when they just know something is wrong with a patient.
Babylon tested the app on a sample set of questions from the MRCGP exam – Membership of the Royal College of GPs – which trainee GPs must pass to qualify.
An employee posing as a patient typed in a range of symptoms to see whether the app was able to correctly diagnose their illness.
The firm further assessed the app by giving it 100 case studies of patient illnesses and comparing it to the performance of seven doctors.
The app was correctly able to diagnose the illness in 80 per cent of cases compared to the doctors who scored between 64 per cent and 94 per cent.
Babylon also has a contract to provide GP services for NHS patients and runs a practice in Fulham, West London, which now has 25,000 patients on its books.
In fact the firm has lured 20,000 patients across from neighbouring surgeries in just six months by offering them virtual consultations with GPs 24 hours a day.
The service is only available on the NHS to patients in West London although Babylon is hoping to expand to other major cities.
Other patients can download the app for free and then pay for virtual appointments at a cost of £25 for ten minutes.