Free AI chatbots are popular with doctors, and some hospitals now block them over patient privacy while others bring them in house.
Hospitals are split on whether doctors should use free AI chatbots with patient information. Monument Health, a health system in South Dakota and Wyoming, blocked access to OpenEvidence, a popular free AI tool, after learning that one doctor had stored more than a hundred patient records in it. STAT reported the story.
Patrick Woodard, Monument's chief information officer, said he had to talk with that doctor, who was a heavy user of the tool. The doctor had been feeding records to the AI for help making medical decisions. Woodard told him that had to stop. A few clinicians objected to the block.
Free chatbots built to answer clinician questions have grown in the past year. Examples include OpenEvidence, Doximity Ask and ChatGPT for Clinicians. Hundreds of thousands of doctors use them. One reason is that the tools claim to meet HIPAA, the federal law that protects health data privacy. After signing an agreement, doctors can share a patient's protected health information directly with the AI.
Health systems have two main choices. They can block the tools if they see compliance risks, or they can bring them in house.
The material does not say how many hospitals have blocked these tools or bought in. It does not say whether any patient data was exposed at Monument, or how the tools' privacy claims have been tested.
Your doctor may be typing your health details into an AI tool, so it is fair to ask your clinic how it handles that.
Reports say the Trump administration is weighing underwater datacenters off Maine and Alaska, and Lake Erie groups want a plan before anyone proposes one nearby.
Read more: Underwater datacenters may be next, and Lake Erie groups are worriedA federal judge says Delta must face a proposed class action over window seat fees, a case that could cost the airline millions and affects anyone who pays extra for a seat.
Read more: Judge says Delta must face class action over window seat feesA Kuala Lumpur firm now sells a SGD 1,500 check of what ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google say about a named executive, after its founder's own test found mix-ups.
Read more: New Audit Checks What AI Chatbots Say About Business Leaders
