Oracle’s Patient Portal debuts “ChatGPT-like” conversational features in ongoing health AI push

As Oracle continues its push to bring more AI capabilities to its healthcare software, the company has revealed that Patient Portal is next in line to debut fresh artificial intelligence features.

Oracle Health Patient Portal is the company’s hub for patients’ medical records, where users can access test results, medications and diagnoses. Last week, Oracle announced that it will soon introduce “ChatGPT-like conversational experiences” to the patient portal.

According to the software giant, the addition of AI to Patient Portal will allow users to ask natural language questions about their medical conditions, some of which the AI will attempt to answer. Oracle gives the examples of patients using Patient Portal’s AI functionality to ask about what a certain blood test result might mean, or explain what a given medical condition is in layman’s terms. It will also use AI to suggest and schedule follow-up appointments.

However, for anything beyond the generic ‘what is this?’ type questions, Oracle’s AI will direct patients towards their doctors.

Oracle says the AI can help patients draft queries for their doctors, which can be sent to medics through the portal’s message centre. “The system also does not generate any diagnosis, medication or treatment recommendations,” the company added, and any text generated by the AI will be highlighted to users with sources cited.

Oracle notes that although the feature is “built on OpenAI frontier models”, no health data is stored by OpenAI.

The AI-powered functionality will be available from next year.

Oracle’s health moves

The news follows the announcement last month that Oracle Electronic Health Record – the patient record software used by healthcare professionals – was also to receive its AI makeover. The update to EHR brought in AI features including voice controls and automated workflows for users.

Against the background of its increasing use of artificial intelligence, Oracle also announced this month the launch of the Oracle AI Center of Excellence for Healthcare, which the company describes as a “a hub of resources and expertise that will help health systems and hospitals deploy and optimize AI”. 

The centre will give users access to cloud environments to develop, build and test their AI projects, as well as information including best practice and implementation guides, and advice from the company’s healthcare AI staffers.

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