‘Why do patients Google their health?’: Medical student creates world’s first public AI health tool
A 22-year-old medical student claims he has come up with the world’s first publicly available artificial intelligence (AI) health information tool after noticing a trend in his patients.
Ian Soh, from Tooting, is a medical student in his penultimate year at St George’s Medical Hospital in Tooting.
Mr Soh says he has developed a tool that gives “clear, authoritative health information and bespoke answers for every patient”, so that they do not need to risk finding the wrong answers searching elsewhere.
On Sunday Mr Soh tweeted: “As a medical student, I have been trained to observe and learn. I have observed, and now I have a question for us all.”
“Why do patients Google their health?”
As a medical student, I have been trained to observe and learn. I have observed, and now I have a question for us all.
— Ian SOH (@IanSoh23) April 23, 2023
Mr Soh said: “People have been going to Google for health information for the longest time.
“I find it really annoying when patients can’t find the right information and I can see how frustrating they find it too.
“Patients are curious, they want to search but Google is filled with ads and unreliable sources.”
BTRU Health’s AI model is ready for its test launch after a period of consultation.
Mr Soh said his model is a “deep learning algorithm” that can recognise, summarise, translate, predict and generate text and other content based on knowledge gained from massive datasets.
This specific model, created by Mr Soh and a team of doctors, has been trained on “reliable health sources” in an attempt to exclude all misinformation.
Introducing @BTRUHealth's AI – the world's first public #AI Medical LLM.
It provides clear, authoritative health information and bespoke answers for every patient. pic.twitter.com/RkT7TdW2PY
— Ian SOH (@IanSoh23) April 23, 2023
But Mr Soh said he is cautious about introducing AI as a solution to the issues of health information access.
He said: “Everyone is trying to look for the good in AI and I think this is it.
“Using technology like this for health information means that trust needs to be built, we don’t want to alienate anyone. I want to bring everyone on this journey.
“If we can help people take control of health safely I think this is the game changer that the world really needs, not just the UK.”
This is not Mr Soh’s first breakthrough in the modern medical world.
He said: “During Covid everyone saw how unreliable health information can be on the internet.”
In March 2020, Mr Soh founded More Viral than the Virus (MVV) with 26 other medical students.
MVV is a global Covid initiative and youth movement recognised by the World Health Organisation.
The initiative combats misinformation in over 50 languages, it has reached more than one million people.
Pictured top: Ian Soh (Picture: Ian Soh)
