Forget about your GP – the robot will see you now

Artificial intelligence to assess urgency of each case after patients key symptoms into program

ROBOTS will soon be able to diagnose patients “more accurately and faster” than almost any doctor, according to the man behind a controversial NHS scheme that will see “chatbots” used to assess 111 calls.

A private company with a string of health service contracts is to launch a national scheme that allows patients to receive a full diagnosis by smartphone without ever having to see a GP.

Babylon Health has just begun a pilot scheme under which patients in five London boroughs are encouraged to consult a chatbot – a computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users – when they contact the 111 non-emergency line.

Patients key in their symptoms, and artificial intelligence assesses the urgency of each case to determine whether users should be told to go to A&E, a pharmacy or tuck up at home.

Now the company’s chief executive has revealed it is to launch a more sophisticated model that will allow any individual to receive a diagnosis by smartphone. Dr Ali Parsa said the system would allow doctors to work in tandem with artificial intelligence so that medics could focus on treating rather than diagnosing diseases.

The entrepreneur said: “There are 300 million pieces of knowledge that we have collected. No human brain can do that. This is the largest amount of primary care clinical semantic knowledge in the would that is held by any computer, as far as we know.”

The model remains in development, but tests so far have shown it is faster and more accurate than the doctors in risk assessing cases, Dr Parsa said. In the coming months, research will test the thesis that it can also outperform medics in making a full diagnosis. So far, trials have found it can do so in all abdominal diseases, the company said.

“I think we will soon be able to diagnose more accurately and faster than a doctor in most cases. That leaves the doctor to focus on the management of the diseases,” Dr Parsa said.

Babylon Health, which was founded in 2013, last month took on the contract to provide virtual responses to 111 cases in north London, covering the boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington.

Its app, which makes a risk assessment of urgency, is also available free to consumers in any part of the country, who can pay £25 if they need a webcam consultation, or subscribe for unlimited access.

But Dr Parsa questioned why the NHS did not make greater use of digital services, given a national shortage of GPs, and a £22 billion savings programme which is underway. “Why couldn’t Babylon be a patient’s NHS GP?” he said. “An NHS GP costs on average about £130 a year - for £60 a year you get all this at your fingertips.

“In 95 per cent of cases, we can see you remotely and you don’t need to see a doctor physically.”

Dr Parsa said tests comparing speed, accuracy and safety of the artificial intelligence system showed the computer consistently outperforming the human.

Tests comparing accuracy of triage – or assessing urgency – found that nurses’ results were accurate in 73.5 per cent of cases, while doctors achieved accuracy levels of 77.5 per cent. The computer reached rates of 90.2 per cent and far more quickly, said Dr Parsa.

Dr Parsa said it was not a question of robots replacing medics, but of providing doctors with the best support.

“If you think of the game of chess – no person can beat the machine but the best games come when chess players are assisted by machine,” he said.