How Patients Actually Use AI, and What It Means for Care
Study healthcare AI long enough and one truth becomes unavoidable: the landscape has changed—permanently.
Much of that change is good. But AI has also opened a quiet gap between some patients and the clinicians who care for them. Patients now arrive having already searched, asked, and self-diagnosed. Some bring pages of AI-generated analysis about what might be wrong. They walk in believing they understand their condition. Their clinicians, already working against the clock, spend scarce minutes explaining what an AI answer can and cannot tell them.
Neither side chose this. The result can feel adversarial. It doesn't have to be.
My premise is simple: clinicians may not fully see how patients are actually using AI. How that use is evolving over time. How it shifts from one patient population to the next. What you cannot see, you cannot respond to.
That is what these articles are for. Each one explores three questions:
- How are patients actually using AI?
- What does it mean for the clinical relationship?
- How can clinicians use AI to build stronger engagement and trust?
Much of what you'll read here draws on data I share in my in-hospital workshops on patient use of AI, and on my books, including Subjects to Sovereigns: Reclaiming Medicine in the Age of AI.
Bring this conversation to your team.
The AI-Informed Patient: Hospital Briefing is available as a 60-minute executive session or a 90-minute interactive session, virtual or onsite. → Schedule a 20-minute conversation
Go deeper. Subjects to Sovereigns: Reclaiming Medicine in the Age of AI → Get the book
Understanding How Patients Use AI
How Patients Use AI for Health Questions
What Patients Use AI For in Healthcare
Why Patients Use AI Before They See a Doctor