Dr Tonic, a new virtual assistant, has been launched by Tonic App to support medical doctors on their day-to-day tasks. Dr. Tonic is powered by ChatGPT API, the large language model trained by OpenAI.
The virtual assistant is integrated with Tonic App, a 360 tool for doctors that curates medical knowledge, clinical tools, educational content, jobs and more, used already by 119,000 physicians. Dr. Tonic is a cheerful virtual assistant that prefers using medical terminology and to give deterministic answers, compared to the generalist version of ChatGPT.
Dr. Tonic is making it easier for doctors to retrieve knowledge, to summarise medical records and key findings in studies, write templates for patient referral letters and emails, prepare health information for lay people, and even support them in planning their holidays or meals.
In the first 24h after the launch, an average 414 words were exchanged with Dr. Tonic by doctor – and growing. The top use cases have been 1) medical knowledge retrieval, 2) questions about medical studies, 3) utilitarian questions, 4) inquiries about Tonic App and 5) queries about the reliability of the service.
Even though ChatGPT was trained with a huge body of medical knowledge, it cannot yet be used safely for diagnosis and treatment decision-making. This is where Tonic App’s clinical content and previously acquired data becomes synergistic with the virtual assistant, as it was produced according to the highest standards so that it can be safely used for clinical decision-making and to feed the model.
Dr. Tonic is also useful in reducing the administrative burden of medical doctors, which has been increasing, as healthcare moves towards value-based care that requires detailed tracking and reporting of quality metrics.
“We are excited to launch Dr. Tonic, because we believe this is the start of a new era for healthcare. AI finally enters the day-to-day operations of healthcare professionals, after years of promise”, says Daniela Seixas, CEO of Tonic App, and herself a medical doctor. “It is estimated that up to 40% of doctors’ time is desk work, particularly in primary care. We can now help medical doctors save real time, reduce stress, and focus on what matters the most: patients. AI is also set to help compensate the shortfall of healthcare workers in Europe.”
Beyond the obvious benefits, AI-assisted tools raise challenges that need to be addressed. In terms of data privacy, third party personal data, such as patients’ identifiers, cannot be shared with the bot, and GDPR compliance must be assured. At Tonic App, we do not allow the larger OpenAI generative model to learn with the data created by our doctor users through our dedicated API.
Dr. Tonic is now available for professional use at Tonic App in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and soon in the UK. To learn more about how it works and how it can benefit your practice, visit www.tonicapp.io.
Tonic App supports medical doctors in diagnosing and treating their patients, by bringing together all the professional resources they need for their day-to-day work in a single mobile platform. Tonic App makes clinical practice even more practical.
The 37 people company was co-founded in Porto in 2016 by Daniela Seixas, CEO, and Andrew Barnes, Christophe de Kalbermatten and Dávid Borsós.
Tonic App has been named by Forbes magazine as one of 60 female-led startups that are “shaking technology around the globe”.
For more information visit: www.tonicapp.io