ChatGPT in Podiatry: Automating Administrative Tasks & Improving Patient Experience

You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

Hi. I'm Tyson Franklin, and welcome back to this week's episode of podiatry marketing. With me today is my cohost, big Jim Mack. How are doing today, Jim?

Getting bigger by the day. You know, the the muscles are just growing. No. But very happy to be here with you, Tyson. Like, excited to talk about this interesting topic and get your take on how the robots are gonna take over podiatry in the rest of the world.

So So you reckon robots are gonna rule the world? They're probably like the Terminator.

I hope I hope it's not I hope it's not that the Terminator, but you never know. Right? So

So what's the topic? What what are we talking about?

Yeah. So today, we're gonna talk about podiatry, AI, and this thing that's been around for little while now called ChatGPT. You know, there's a lot of automation and kind of ways that computers and machine learning and AI are kinda changing the way that we use different types of applications of daily life, whether it be a word processor or, you know, the way we go about our podiatry practice also will see some changes. But you might have come across some of this kind of AI generated art or there's been some kind of AI generated text kind of kind of experiments, but it's kind of being worked into some different products these days that really kind of help help facilitate, I would say, kinda like generation of content that will with with the kind of theory of like, you know, you can, you know, save some time and effort by utilizing some of these kind of new tools.

Yeah. I was only talking to someone yesterday and they were showing me a particular program. And they said, give us some topics that podiatrists would normally write about. So I gave them a couple of topics. And they said, and what type of people would be likely to read this sort of information?

So I told them the type of patients that come in. They punched a few things into this AI program, and it sped out, like, 35 different blog articles that it wrote. They said they started reading them to me, and I went, you know what? They're probably about 90% accurate. I said, all it takes is you to then oh, and I also wonder how many words did you want per blog article?

And I said, oh, make it 320. And they okay. So the 320 words on the topic for this particular person, and I read through it, and I went, oh, it's probably only a few things I'd actually change just to make it accurate.

Yeah.

So when people are saying, oh, I don't know how to write blog articles. Well, don't worry. AI can probably do it for you.

Well, technology's, you know, obviously had a huge change on not only our profession, but also health in general because, you know, annoyingly or not annoyingly like a lot of information about health care is now available through doctor Google. Right? So, you know, a lot of patients will come in thinking they already know what they have, how they should be treated, and you're just there to like sign the prescription or just kinda like double check that doctor Google is correct. And while we don't, you know, we don't want that to to be the case, you know, it it can be there there's just so many tools out there right now that use utilize these kind of different technologies and, you know, whether it be kind of that auto complete, I don't know if you use Gmail, Tyson, but, you know, one example of this kinda like AI or predictive text finishing off your sentences. Right?

If I say like, have a great or, you know, have a you know, at the end of an email Yes. Say maybe great week, great Monday. It kinda learns your the habits of what you write and then basically just kinda, like, gives you the opportunity to kinda, like, save you some time by doing that. Also from a medical perspective, there's some different technologies now available where machine learning and kind of through optical sensors can look at x rays. There's been some studies that say they're actually better detecting early stage breast cancer and some lung cancers better than radiologists.

So whether we like it or not, technology is here to stay. And hopefully, by kind of partnering with the technology, our patients can benefit in a lot of ways. But I think it goes back to what you just said, you know, it's kind of a shift now. Right? So like if you're writing an email or an article, you don't necessarily have to be the content creator or the generator of it.

It gets you 80 to 90% of the percent of the way there. But it kinda gives you the opportunity now to be an editor. Yeah. And and editing whether it be looking at an x-ray to double check or checking to make sure you didn't send some crazy email or that the the, you know, this kind of AI writer didn't, you know, put some crazy stuff about how to treat plantar fasciitis in there. The human editor is still really, really important.

I think will be for some period of time, but that's whether it be self driving cars, you know, the way you write a clinic note. We'll get into some more examples of some of this stuff that that could be used, but, you know, it it definitely is moving that way with a lot of different tools. There's one called jasper.ai, which is a or copy dot a I or copy like, there's a couple of different kind of writing tools that are very popular now. There's actually one from Google actually, a former Google employee. I think he works for it's called it's called OpenAI, but it's called ChatGPT.

And, basically, like you said, if you say, like, you know, what is the cause of plantar fasciitis or, you know, you just you just type in a question. You say, like and we'll get into more specifics later, but it'll spit out something that's, you know, eighty, ninety percent of the way there. It requires some editing from you or from your staff, but it's pretty crazy some of the tools that are are currently kind of coming into production.

Even when you said before, there there's two things. One about, yeah, machines identifying breast cancer and lung cancer, and they're doing it better than radiologists, and you can you can understand the benefits of that because the machine doesn't get tired. Like a radiologist, you know, when they're looking at something at 8AM in the morning and if they're they're still there at 6PM, and they've been doing that for ten hours, are they as focused as what they should be? And I I've had x rays and that's sent back to us where there's an obvious problem, and the radiologist's gone, all clear. And I'm like, yeah.

I know. My anatomy was never the best, but I'm sure the fifth metatarsal was only one bone. Not two. A big split down the middle of it. And they go, that was pretty obvious.

I didn't think I need to report on that. They go, well, no. No. Yeah. You'll pay to report.

So a machine just does it. There were but there was on the other side of things, I saw a video on TikTok the other day, and it's someone who's using one of their self parking cars, And they've got their hands in there like this, the person's the backseat filming it, and the car just smashed straight in the car behind them. And everyone in the backseat is cracked up laughing. That's where they've used AI, you know, like artificial intelligence to park the car for them. Didn't work.

Yeah. Some of those cars have sonar. In some ways, they're supposed to, like, you know, notice where those cars are bef you know, in front and behind you. But I think it is one of those things you just whether it be with a, you know, Tesla or be a vehicle, you know, a Gmail, you still have to kind of be in command. Right?

You can't fall asleep at the wheel whether you're writing a message or, you know, trying to parallel park a car. It's really important that they can be powerful tools, but we still need to be in charge and be the editor and not just be reliant. Because if, you know, people are pressed for time. So, you know, hopefully, this will save time and not make people overly lazy. There is some, like I mean, know, dangers maybe be a little too strong, but we can't be completely reliant on these different tools.

But getting back to, like, the the ChatGPT. So this is a kind of in it's in when I'm, you know, recording this right now, you know, it's in kind of a open free testing. So if you go if you look up ChatGPT from OpenAI, you might but like for a couple of examples, like you talked about, let's say, you know, what is the treatment for plantar fasciitis? It'll spit out, you know, 200, three hundred words about that topic. Or that's one way of doing it.

Or maybe, you know, there's there's there's something, you know, you get a in The US, it's not too uncommon to get insurances deny certain types of treatment or care. Maybe like, let's say it's a diabetic patient. For whatever reason, they're not allowing you to see that patient on a monthly basis to do like, you know, they they're insensate. They don't have any, you know, basically, they don't have any protection left in their skin. They're developing wounds or sores, and they need to be seen on a consistent basis.

And you're maybe you get a a letter from insurance provider saying, you can only do annual checks with this patient. Well, with it with this chat GPT, you can type in basically say, you know, write a letter to Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance company, include citations about why what the importance of monthly diabetic foot screenings and checks for people that are in Sensate. It'll basically just like write out a very, very good letter with citations to like scientific literature within the copy and provide the citations at the end. So, you know, the the American Journal of Diabetes or another type of, you know, journal citation will be in there. I mean, it's it's not perfect yet, but I've I did a couple of these example, and I thought that was a pretty interesting one.

Another one too is maybe you have maybe some of the templated things that you've done in the past are a little bit stale. Maybe you have a thank you note or a thank you letter that you send to different clinics or other physicians that refer you patients, and you wanna freshen it up a little bit. You can actually type in, like, change the tone of this, you know, like, put in all that text and then change the tone of the following or rewrite the following. It'll rewrite that thank you note. And maybe if you wanna make it a little bit more personalized, you can put in some stuff in there in the description.

But we're really moving from, like, having to actually write the entire thing into, like, knowing how to make the right prompts and knowing the capabilities of some of the software, the chat GPT. There's more we can get into, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts and your questions about this, Tyson.

Well, I I like the idea of it and I can see it. It goes back to what you said before. A lot of this is saving time, and instead of us having to burn up because I always say we we only have a certain amount of mental energy. You know, we have a certain amount per day, and when it's used up, we become we just get tired, and you don't feel like doing the work. So if you had a busy day with patients all day, you don't then don't wanna you don't wanna write the reports.

Or if you are writing the reports, it is a real struggle to write a report or a response to a referrer. So I can see the advantages of pushing a few buttons, making a few comments, doing the reports for you, that then the next day, you can then come back to when you're very clear headed. Just do the editing like you spoke about before and get them out there. So it's I can see it as a real time saver. And probably being more accurate because sometimes when you're tired and you're writing, you write you write rubbish.

It does. It's just gibberish.

I think it's an also opportunity too to, make sure whatever content you're creating, let's say, on your website or on a social media channel or through some ads, it's also a way to kinda keep that consistent. Because, you know, if you can say, you can type in things like write a tweet about plantar fasciitis based off of this information. You just kinda like put it in there. It'll make like a 40 or 280 word tweet or like write a paragraph about this or it's a way to like even condense some of the content you have. It's a pretty interesting tool to like, know, just make sure you're continuing to sending the same message on different platforms.

And sometimes that can be kind of time consuming, I would say. I don't think it's like it's not it's not a it's not brain surgery to, like, rocket science to, like

Yeah.

Take take a a blog page and convince it into a paragraph. But if you're not consistently writing, I'm sure that this tool or other tools similar to it are gonna save as significant amount of time because it'll just it'll kinda just do it for you in a way. And like you said, edit it and make sure it's accurate, you know, both scientifically and grammatically. But that's something that can be huge.

Mhmm. But it's sort of like Grammarly. Not Grammarly. Yep. Canva.

When you're in Canva and you do some artwork, you might do a certain that could be a show title or something like that. And once you do it, it says, do you want to resize this for YouTube shorts? Do you wanna resize it for Instagram? And when you say yes, it takes all your information there, and it does move it around. And then all it really takes for you is just a little bit tweaking because it never moves it perfectly.

It just moves it into where it should be, and then you just tweak it. So I would say what you're talking about is very similar with the writing because when you said before a bit, it can change the tone of a letter. So it should be I've met you for the first time, Jim, and I wrote a letter to you. It's gonna be quite formal. Yeah.

But then as I get to know you and our relationship improves, then my response to you could be, yeah, I could say friendlier as time goes on. Until I meet you and go, hey. Big Jim Mac here doing. Here's another patient for you.

Well

Fix him up.

Well well, that's the thing. I think a lot of people think, oh, it's AI or it's some, like, generated thing. It doesn't have it's it's not personal. Right? It's a cold robot kinda writing this thing.

But I think you you point out a really important part that like, these things can change the tone and tell them. And that's sometimes in a way almost more personal than you just like having this template you just send to everybody. Right? And that that after a while, after someone gets like the third or fourth, like, kind of same letter you've given them. But if you can do this in fifteen, twenty seconds and really kinda make more of a personal connection with them and show not only your personality, but also just it's a it's a level of warmth towards another person that you just people don't necessarily have the time for these days.

And I would say also with within an EMR, you know, people have been trying to like voice detect dictate, have these, like, you know, bullet point, like, kinda short code templates that just pop up with things. And maybe you're great with that, but this ChatGPT can also do things like that. It can do it can start off history and physical. It can start off a progress or an operative note. So like I said, it's about 80% of the way there and you have to make sure you put in the proper prompts to make it happen.

But chat GPT is one of the two things that I wanna touch base with today about that. But I think it's it's a pretty interesting way to save time with text.

Yeah. Before you get on the second one, so it would also be like just intuitive learning, wouldn't it? That as you use it

Yep.

It yeah. It's a little bit gonna be a little bit time consuming maybe at the beginning just to get the hang of it. Then once you start using it, it's like the more you use it, the better you get it, the better it gets to know you, and it changed through. I've even found that, like, a simple program has been around for ages like Grammarly. You'll write something now.

So what's the context that you're writing this? Is this professional? Is it friendly? Is it supposed to be just informative? And they change words based on what you've told them what to do.

Now Grammarly's been around for ages, but it sounds like this is just going a whole complete this thing's actually writing it for you, which is even easier. Grammarly won't write it for you.

It's the writer near the editor. Right? I think that editorial part, I think it's I think a lot of people that, you know, don't like, I mean, I I I build websites. You coach. You know, you write a lot as well.

You've written books. So, like, I think sometimes when you're you're not in that kind of content creation, you you see yourself as the writer and then you you write it and you just send it out. But there has to be kind of a thorough editorial process. And I would say that, like, while this can write this stuff for you, it really kind of emphasizes the importance of an editorial, like, time and commitment to making sure that it's really accurate. Because like I said, it it can do those things.

We just wanna make sure that, you know, it's it's it doesn't impose any kind of, like, potential harm or danger to those that read it.

Yeah. Alright. And speaking of books, if you haven't got a copy of It's No Secret There's Money in Podiatry, put that on your Christmas list for 2023 this year, and make sure somebody in your family buys it for you. There you go. There's a plug for myself.

So what Nice plug. So, Jim, when you write your book, you'll be allowed to do that too. What's what's the the second thing you wanna talk about?

The second one is maybe something people have seen probably more it's probably a little bit earlier. It obviously, it is a little bit earlier than this kinda like text AI. It's basically utilizing the creation of images through text. There's a lot of editor there's lot of editors coming out now. There's ways to kinda upload photos of yourself or photos of maybe your clinic or you in surgery.

And you can actually have these kind of, like, strong AI models create images. You know, I I still think, at least for right now, like, authentic real photos of you taking care of patients is probably steps ahead of what the AI is. But sometime in the future, maybe, you know, let's say you can't get into the operating room. Let's say you like to do a lot of surgery for some reason. That's like kind of your specialty.

You're you're in the the OR, but either you haven't taken pictures there, you don't feel comfortable. There's probably a way that they can create an image with your photo of of you doing like a foot surgery of like a composited patient. I mean, this is probably a few years down the road, but there are these open AI or these AI ways of creating images. So be aware of that. I don't really know if there's a real important thing that you know, I think, you know, like you talked about in the previous podcast, like, you know, if we're doing images and creating stuff for, you know, graphic design, you know, Canva's a pretty great way to do that.

But I I assume at some time in the future, a lot of things that you have to kinda mainly do in Canva, you might be able to say, type it in, like, you know, maybe you have to upload two or three photos in like a template. But like you said, just type in say, or or voice command say, make me a, you know, image for a Facebook post or make me an image for LinkedIn post or even with video potentially, not only distill images, but there is a potential with, you know, with video, say, you know, edit this video, take out all the ums and ahs that Jim says, and all the horrible jokes that Tyson Tyson says.

All the likes. Well, no. I've seen that. There was a what's it called? I cannot remember the name of the program.

I have played around with it. And you do the video like we're doing now, for example. Then the trans you upload the video to the I think it's called is it Ask Eddie? Ask Eddie?

I've I've used Descript that will remove some of these filler words.

Yeah. So you put the video in, then it gives you the the transcript. You edit the transcript, and as you edit the transcript, it it then edit edits the video for you. Yep. So it saves you having to go back and edit the video as well.

You're editing a transcript, and as you edit that, it automatically takes it out of the video. So which jeez, I tell you, I just had the video recently and it was very time consuming.

Well, one of those things they can do as well is if you with Descript, you can actually spend ten or fifteen minutes basically saying words. They'll basically, they'll record you saying specific words.

Yeah.

And by saying those, like, I don't if it's ten minutes or five minutes where it is nowadays. But after you're done saying all of those words, you're actually able to type in words into the video editor. It'll it'll sound like you saying those words without you, you know, let's say bunionectomy. You never said bunionectomy, but they can they can make you say bunionectomy. And so if you forgot to say a word or, you know, instead of saying bunny neck, you said like a million times, you can copy paste that into those spots.

And It'll

add it.

Like I said, this is we're getting a little geeky here, maybe a little bit in the weeds, but I I think it is really important to come back to the fact that a lot of these AI tools with the ChatGPT or some of these image tools in the future might save your practice time, save you time, but also provide a level of service and care that you currently can't because you're you're under the a time crunch. Right? Time is that most valuable commodity or resource that we have. And I think it's important that, you know, whether you use these in your practice tomorrow or six months from now or or never, you just need to know what's out there and where things are moving. And that's kind of, you know, this might be a little bit more of a a future forward episode, but I think it is important for people to know what's coming down the line so you can be like you talked about, not be complacent and be proactive in your practice.

And there's two things. I got a friend, a one friend who every morning wakes up at a particular time, and the first hour of the day, all he does is read articles on what's new. He'll read all these different articles just to get a feel of what's happening in the world. He does it for the first hour, and he feels that keeps him up to date with most of the changes that are actually happening. The second thing that I was gonna say is keep listening to this podcast because you spend a lot of time, Jim, researching all this stuff.

Yeah. I try to help people kind of stay stay up to date as far as, you know, what directions the profession might be moving. And, you know, the questions you ask kind of help me solidify these ideas, you know, try to improve my speech, say like a lot less. But, you know, I enjoy these conversations we have. And I and if anyone ever has questions about anything we bring up on the podiatry marketing podcast, definitely go over to our website podiatry.marketing.

Ask us questions. Are there things out there you wanna learn more about, whether it be in marketing or just in practice management, we're happy to devote a podcast to to those different topics.

Well, Jim, I think that is about a wrap for this episode. This has been great. And thing thing is it's actually got me thinking a lot about different aspects of things I've seen in the past that I'm going, yeah, I need to look into that a little bit more.

Yeah. That's what this is what this podcast is all about, Tyson.

Okay. Big Jim, I will talk to you next week.

Sounds like a plan, Tyson.

Okay. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDaniel. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.