Grace Cordovano, CancerX Fellow, Co-Founder at Unblock Health, Public Speaker at Enlightening Results, LLC, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“What do you tell your neighbor, who with tears in her eyes, grips your hand and says the oncologist said, “We don’t call patients with results. That’s their responsibility.”
She found out her husband’s cancer returned after finding his PET scan posted in the portal about two weeks after it was done.
The oncologist never called to relay the findings.
The diagnosis of stage IV cancer just sat quietly in the portal.
They figured no news was good news.
She said she logged in to send another specialist a message for a prescription refill.
She noticed the new imaging result.
She cut and pasted the body of it into ChatGPT to translate it. English is her second language.
She broke down crying and called the oncologist’s office. She said she was met with a cold, emotionless response, annoyed she called to ask why there was no follow up.
No sympathy offered for the heaviness of the news that just shattered her and her husband’s lives.
She said ChatGPT was sympathetic.
This is not an isolated case.
As health systems and cancer centers race to figure out how to harness AI and lower costs, gaps are appearing in patterns, likely products of automation and workforce shortages.
Health care is laser-focused on collecting more data but not carefully handling and using the data already collected.
Thank goodness patients have access to their medical records thanks to the efforts of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and those working tirelessly on Health Tech Ecosystem at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Thank goodness patients have access to LLM’s that can help when there isn’t a doctor or nurse in sight. When we have been forgotten. When we have fallen into the gap.
Not notifying a patient of a cancer diagnosis or any life-altering, life-limiting condition is inexcusable and a matter of patient safety.
Another example of care “built around the patient” but not built at all for what matters to the patient.”
Other articles featuring Grace Cordovano on OncoDaily.