When it comes to AI and healthcare, patient understanding is essential

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Healthcare is on the brink of a technological revolution. Some would argue we are already in the midst of one. The capabilities AI can bring to healthcare professionals, medical services and patient experience are potentially limitless. In OpenEvidence, founded by Canadian tech entrepreneur Daniel Nader, there is a tool that gives doctors and nurses access to a world of medical knowledge that would only be dreamt of by generations past. However, for this kind of technology to realise its full potential, it will require buy-in, understanding and trust from patients. 

Recent polling exposes a disparity between healthcare professional and public attitudes to the role of AI in healthcare. In the UK, according to the Health Foundation, 80% of professionals support the use of AI in patient care, contrasted with only 55% of the wider public. In the United States, a growing number of people are using AI tools to supplement a doctor’s appointment, standing at one-in-four today, according to Gallup. It is clear, whether overseen by medical professionals or not, AI is already playing a front and centre role in a new look doctor/patient dynamic. 

However, the risks to patients who rely too heavily on their own use of tools are obvious. In no other field are the potential ramifications so high stakes than in medicine. The potential for misinterpretation and misunderstanding are significant. That is where companies like OpenEvidence come in, providing a tool that is specifically designed to overcome the information quality issue by being trained on the highest quality medical research and, crucially, overseen by professionals. 

Rather than a patient sitting at home, concerned and possibly panicked by a worrying symptom, OpenEvidence is a tool that is used by doctors to find, transmit and deploy the best available medical information. Trained exclusively on the world’s best available medical research, journals, studies and evidence, the responses are not the mere aggregation of a cursory scrape of the internet. Nor are they interpreted by an untrained, vulnerable individual in desperate search of answers. 

It is this training regime that will prove vital to OpenEvidence’s long-term success. Patients will understandably, and reasonably, look upon a doctor using an AI tool for answers with a degree of scepticism. ‘Are they simply asking ChatGPT for answers?’ some might worryingly assume. And why wouldn’t they without a basic understanding of what OpenEvidence is and how it works. Primarily, it will be the role of medical professionals to explain this and the company itself to empower them to do so. To inspire long-term confidence and trust, the tool cannot simply work. It must be understood by those it is ultimately serving, the patient. 

Nadler, who founded OpenEvidence in 2022 in the immediate aftermath of the Covid pandemic, has previously likened the technology’s development to the progression of streaming services. Speaking to Fierce Healthcare last year, he said “the technology involved in streaming has now been pretty commoditized. These copilots are eventually going to get there, but then you differentiate around content and partnerships”. The streaming services model is universally understood. For AI-driven medical technology, such as OpenEvidence, to become truly established it must psychologically reach the same position in terms of public understanding. 

Today, according to an Offcall 2025 study, more than 45% of physicians are using OpenEvidence. That number, according to Nadler and the company, is growing by approximately 65,000 new registrations every month. For OpenEvidence, the major challenge now is to work with those frontline medical professionals to improve public understanding and ensure this powerful tool is an established, trusted component of an enhanced patient experience.