In health care, artificial intelligence, or AI, has the potential to make drug discovery faster and cheaper and improve diagnoses and treatments. How should AI ensure patient privacy and how can it be used fairly? How might AI improve patient care, increase efficiency, and reduce costs? These are questions that need thoughtful discussion.

Dr. Koushik Kasanagottu, a public health expert and assistant clinical professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the UC Riverside School of Medicine, addresses questions pertinent to AI in medicine in the Q&A below. Before joining UCR as a community-based faculty member, Kasanagottu was a fellow at Harvard Medical School and the U.S. Senate, where he honed his expertise in health care policy and innovation. He is a founding member and physician advisor for DocAide, a health care AI startup focused on transforming clinical decision making.

AI has had an exponential growth in the health care industry. It is significantly transforming health care by streamlining administrative tasks and improving documentation. In my own practice, I use an AI scribe daily to document patient visits. This allows me to spend more face-to-face time with patients rather than focusing on extensive notetaking, improving patient experience and the quality of the encounter.

However, these tools still require clinician oversight to ensure accuracy and quality. Looking ahead, I envision AI tools augmenting decision making, supporting clinical reasoning, and reducing diagnostic errors.

Source: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-02-ai-field-medicine.html