It\u2019s not like AI suddenly showed up in medicine. It\u2019s been there for years. What\u2019s changed is that the first interpretations of our symptoms, the first hypotheses and even the first emotions about our health aren\u2019t happening in the doctor\u2019s office anymore. They show up earlier. In front of a screen, in a conversation with an algorithm.<\/p>
OpenAI isn\u2019t trying to create a new habit, but tapping into an existing one. And the scale is hard to ignore, as about 200 million users<\/a><\/mark> ask ChatGPT health-related questions each week, and about 40 million do it every day.<\/a><\/p> From a doctor’s perspective, this isn’t new. For years, they’ve talked about patients walking into the office with a ready-made narrative: printouts in hand, stuff from forums, search engines… For a long time, people saw it as a side effect of the internet. But the data shows it’s mainstream.<\/p> In the United States, over 58% <\/a><\/mark>of adults say they search for health information online at least once a year. In Europe, from 65% to 80% <\/a><\/mark>of users do the same. The internet isn’t just an add-on anymore. It’s become the first filter. Studies<\/a><\/mark> show that, in most cases, the internet is the first place people turn to when they want to look up information about their health.<\/p> This is a crucial moment, because it\u2019s when the patient decides whether the problem is urgent or it can wait. It\u2019s also when the first interpretation of the symptoms appears, the one the patient later brings to the doctor.<\/p> In Poland, it plays out much the same. According to PZU Zdrowie research<\/a><\/mark> (Polish insurer), search engines are one of the main sources of health information for about 37\u201338% of Poles.<\/a> And that\u2019s one of the biggest problems doctors run into. When a patient already has a self-diagnosis, it\u2019s really hard to convince them it\u2019s actually something else.<\/p> For years, the go-to tool was the search engine. It gave you a list of links you had to read, compare and reflect upon. AI is changing the game. Instead of links, you get a conversation. Instead of snippets, a coherent narrative that feels much more trustworthy than “read” sources. Besides, users see AI-generated health information as useful and helpful<\/a><\/mark>. As a result, it\u2019s easy to mistake the form of an answer for its quality, and the coherence of the narrative for the accuracy of the conclusion.<\/p> Up to now, people had been asking health questions in the regular “open” chat. ChatGPT Health<\/a><\/mark> is an attempt to put some structure around that, and in that sense, it\u2019s definitely a big step forward. A dedicated space, extra safeguards, and clear privacy commitments are all meant to make answers more accurate and keep your data secure.<\/p> At the same time, OpenAI is being very careful about geographical access. The lack of availability in the European Union isn’t incidental. Health data are the most sensitive kind of personal data, and European regulations<\/a><\/mark>, including the GDPR, don’t leave room for experiments. <\/a><\/p> That’s reassuring, but it also raises a question: should we keep things as they are, or should we take a closer look at those limitations? In other words, is it better for people to use AI for health questions the way they do now, or would it be better to give them a tool that (at least technically) can provide greater security for their data and the answers they get?<\/p> In clinical settings, AI can work really well. In a European breast cancer screening program, algorithms boosted cancer detection by 17,6%<\/a><\/mark> <\/mark> without increasing the number of false positives. In Poland, AI-based tools were used in 2024 in mark style=”background-color:#82D65E” class=”has-inline-color has-base-color”>over 13% of hospitals<\/a>, mainly in radiology.<\/a><\/p> But those are controlled environments, with a clear division of roles and responsibilities. ChatGPT Health operates in a very different space, where emotions, uncertainty and incomplete information are the norm. So the key question isn\u2019t whether AI makes mistakes, but about when the diagnosis is formed. If a patient walks into the office with a ready-made conclusion about their health, the doctor isn\u2019t the first filter anymore. They start their work correcting that.<\/p> That’s why public health authorities have been reminding people for years to think critically about medical information. That doesn’t change just because you’re chatting with an AI instead of reading a website. A chat, even one as specialized as ChatGPT Health, can help you understand, organize the information and prepare for your appointment. It shouldn’t be where the final decision gets made.<\/p> Now that Dr. AI has joined Dr. Google, the two have greater influence. Let’s hope there will be as few cases as possible where the physician is reduced to merely correcting a therapy already decided elsewhere \u2014 or, worse still, where diagnoses from cyber-doctors are the only ones we rely on.<\/p> <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You can look at OpenAI\u2019s launch of ChatGPT Health two ways: as just another product in the AI ecosystem, or as proof that something much more important is shifting\u2014the point where the diagnosis starts and the treatment plan takes shape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":465,"featured_media":17027,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[999],"tags":[],"popular":[],"difficulty-level":[38],"ppma_author":[892],"class_list":["post-17084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-medicine","difficulty-level-medium"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":892,"user_id":465,"is_guest":0,"slug":"kmironczuk","display_name":"Krzysztof Miro\u0144czuk","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/awatar-2.png","url2x":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/awatar-2.png"},"first_name":"Krzysztof","last_name":"Miro\u0144czuk","user_url":"","job_title":"","description":"Od lat zajmuj\u0119 si\u0119 nowymi technologiami w biznesie, edukacji i codziennym \u017cyciu. W centrum mojej uwagi pozostaje cz\u0142owiek \u2013 i to, by technologia wyr\u00f3wnywa\u0142a szanse, zamiast tworzy\u0107 bariery."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/465"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17085,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17084\/revisions\/17085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17084"},{"taxonomy":"popular","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/popular?post=17084"},{"taxonomy":"difficulty-level","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/difficulty-level?post=17084"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=17084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Taking your diagnosis to the doctor<\/h4>
From Dr. Google to Dr. AI<\/h4>
Where’s the risk?<\/h4>