Overview of Themes
| Theme 1 | Priority applications of AI in primary care |
|---|---|
| Main idea | Highest priority applications of AI are to areas where the current state of technology drives provider burnout, challenges patient-centeredness, or limits access to care. |
| Quotes | As a patient, I don't want my doctor spending his time facing the computer. I want him facing me…So in terms of looking at all of those admin tasks that are taking away from the patient care, I think AI has the potential to free up that time so that I have more face time with my doctor. — 39-year-old patient from British Columbia |
| I think that doctors are often overwhelmed and overworked and if AI can be used to help with that, I'm all for that, so that they can be more efficient and more effective in their work. — 34-year-old patient from Alberta | |
| I was struck by the overlap in interests between providers and patients…What stood out was creating more time to be able to focus on actual patient and provider interaction… just having more of that time not taken up by all these other nonclinical issues. That…could represent a very safe, low-risk place to start and to sort of build upon AI within the primary care setting. — 42-year-old family physician from Manitoba | |
| My sense is that [triage in primary care] is absolutely abysmal…Like, there is no function, currently, of sophisticated pre-visit triage…In [my] clinic, people wait 20 minutes and hang up. They don't even call because it's so hard to get in. That's our triage system. If [there was] a way to…symptom check or…prescreen a little bit, they might be more likely to [come in]. — 48-year-old family physician from Ontario |
| Theme 2 | Impact of AI on primary care provider roles |
|---|---|
| Main idea | AI is not a substitute for provider expertise. It should be applied in ways that supplement core clinical skills and enhance patient-centered care. |
| Quotes | When I'm struggling [to manage my diabetes], sometimes…I'm just tired of being a diabetic. It's not because…I don't know how to take care of myself…It's only when a trust relationship has been built up with the doctor that he can begin to say, “Okay, I know you know how to take care of it. You don't seem to be taking care of it right now. What's going on for you?” I think you have to rely…on the trust relationship between the doctor and the patient to recognize specifically what's going on. It may be more subtle than the things that AI might pick up. — 73-year-old patient from Alberta |
| In my case, I can tell you for sure that an AI would say, “Oh, she needs this prescription.” Meanwhile, that could kill me…There are nuances here that I don't think an AI could know…And look at it this way: in finance, we have controls in place…So, I would want the doctor to review that first. I'm all for them not having to do as much typing. I think it would save time, but there would have to be that review. — 55-year-old patient from Ontario | |
| Electronic health records have advantages for sure…But…the one thing I miss so much [is] that I can no longer do a genogram. There's nothing. They were never designed [for EMRs]. So, my family histories are so different than how I was taught with that picture. I did it with patients and we could really understand their family history from so many different angles. I used to love that part of care…We just have to be careful [with AI so] that we don't lose…strengths of [the] older model. — 57-year-old family physician from Ontario | |
| How does AI…consider the triad of, you know, what is the evidence? What is my experience that I've had after 35 years in practice? And what are the patient preferences?…I'm not sure how AI could pick up understanding my clinical experience. I don't know how AI can pick up what a patient's preferences [are] either. So, I think [of AI] as a tool…within our evidence-based medicine model. — 64-year-old chiropractor from Ontario |
| Theme 3 | Considerations for provider training in AI |
|---|---|
| Main idea | Formative and continuing education of primary care and other health professionals should cultivate basic AI literacy, algorithm critical appraisal skills, and safe, effective use within clinical reasoning processes and workflows. |
| Quotes | I would like to trust that my provider has a good perspective in AI so that he doesn't just sort of follow it slavishly but considers it as part of his care for me. — 73-year-old patient from Alberta |
| I don't mean to sound like an alarmist about the dependency part. I'm not being reactionary. It's just, I have concerns about that. So, I wonder how [the use of AI] would be monitored, how doctors would be trained, how we would ensure that patients are getting still this benefit of experience and knowledge and not just this dependency. — 55-year-old patient from Ontario | |
| I have a 15-year-old who's learning how to drive. We have one car that has sensors and all sorts of safety features, and another car that doesn't….I feel like he needs to understand how to operate a vehicle at its base level before he can really make use of [safety features]…Maybe we need to emphasize the diagnostic reasoning, the history and physical pieces and the test ordering first, and introduce AI to that senior clinical learner…rather than right off the bat, so that they've got those building blocks behind them. — 44-year-old family physician from Alberta | |
| I think that part of what can help physicians [manage] our medical legal liability and risk is education and training around what these technologies are and what their purpose is…It's going to take a lot of awareness building among physicians to stay on top of how we can practice safely with the best interests of our patients in mind as these technologies become more widespread. — 42-year-old family physician from Manitoba |
AI, artificial intelligence.