Medical Expectations of Physicians on AI Solutions in Daily Practice: Cross-Sectional Survey Study

Abstract

Background: The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine has been a trending subject in the past few years. Although not frequently used in daily practice yet, it brings along many expectations, doubts, and fears for physicians. Surveys can be used to help understand this situation.

Objective: This study aimed to explore the degree of knowledge, expectations, and fears on possible AI use by physicians in daily practice, according to sex and time since graduation.

Methods: An electronic survey was sent to physicians of a large hospital in Brazil, from August to September 2022.

Results: A total of 164 physicians responded to our survey. Overall, 54.3% (89/164) of physicians considered themselves to have an intermediate knowledge of AI, and 78.5% (128/163) believed that AI should be regulated by a governmental agency. If AI solutions were reliable, fast, and available, 77.9% (127/163) intended to frequently or always use AI for diagnosis (143/164, 87.2%), management (140/164, 85.4%), or exams interpretation (150/164, 91.5%), but their approvals for AI when used by other health professionals (85/163, 52.1%) or directly by patients (82/162, 50.6%) were not as high. The main benefit would be increasing the speed for diagnosis and management (106/163, 61.3%), and the worst issue would be to over rely on AI and lose medical skills (118/163, 72.4%). Physicians believed that AI would be useful (106/163, 65%), facilitate their work (140/153, 91.5%), not alter the number of appointments (80/162, 49.4%), not interfere in their financial gain (94/162, 58%), and not replace their jobs but be an additional source of information (104/162, 64.2%). In case of disagreement between AI and physicians, most (108/159, 67.9%) answered that a third opinion should be requested. Physicians with ≤10 years since graduation would adopt AI solutions more frequently than those with >20 years since graduation (P=.04), and female physicians were more receptive to other hospital staff using AI than male physicians (P=.008).

Conclusions: Physicians were shown to have good expectations regarding the use of AI in medicine when they apply it themselves, but not when used by others. They also intend to use it, as long as it was approved by a regulatory agency. Although there was hope for a beneficial impact of AI on health care, it also brings specific concerns.

Keywords: perceptions; AI; acceptance; adoption; artificial intelligence; expectations; medical survey; opinion; physician; qualitative study; survey.

Figure 1.. Physicians’ expectations about the role of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions when used by themselves, other health care professionals, or patients (questions 13-17).