Ep #42: Using ChatGPT in the Clinical Workplace

Episode 42, Using ChatGPT in the Clinical Workplace.

Welcome to Clinicians Creating Impact, a show for physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists looking to take the next step in their careers and make a real difference in the lives of their clients. If you’re looking to improve the lives of neurodiverse children and families with neurological-based challenges, grow your own business, or simply show up to help clients, this is the show for you. 

I’m Heather Branscombe, Therapist, Certified Coach, Clinical Director, and Owner of Abilities Neurological Rehabilitation. I have over 25 years of experience in both the public and private sectors, and I’m here to help you become the therapist you want to be, supporting people to work towards their dreams and live their best lives. You ready to dive in? Let’s go.

Hi there, friend. I am excited to be talking to you today about the newest thing in technology and your work. Now, full disclosure, I love technology. I’m not always the earliest adopter, and I’m not always even great at it. I think loving something and being good at something are probably two different things. But especially when I was actually practicing full-time clinically, I loved how I could use technology in my treatment planning and just in my clinical work. 

I remember one of the earliest deep dives into technology was early in 2008 when I had newly started Abilities. I was reading the book The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, who, fun fact, is also a Canadian. And reading that book, I was hearing about all the technologies that could help to make an impact on the brain. 

That was such a big thing for me, because here I had started this new private practice where I really wanted to create a bigger impact, again, for myself, but also for my clients, and neuroplasticity was a huge part of it. 

I have this real vivid memory of being on a plane to California with my newly hired rehab assistant colleague who was, in fact, my first hire at Abilities. And together, we were going to a course about some cutting edge rehab. And I was reading all about actually this cutting edge rehab in this book. It was such an amazing, full circle moment. 

And ironically, at that course, I actually learned about more cutting edge technology that I then began to pursue to actually bring into Canada. So all of this to say I have always loved the role that technology could play in creating a bigger impact for my clients. 

So, at the time, I just thought neuroplasticity was really the basis of the things that I did as a physiotherapist. And if I could get technology to help me with that repetition that is so key in neuroplasticity, then I wanted to use that as much as possible. 

So fast forward to the end of the year last year when, I don’t know about you, but that’s when I really started to hear a lot more about AI and more specifically about ChatGPT. I don’t know about you, but it actually kind of sounded a little bit scary to me when I first heard about it. And I think with a lot of new things, and especially new technology, it makes sense that it would be a little bit scary. 

And I have no idea where AI is going to go. And I really don’t have a lot of strong feelings about that, but I’ve really started to use ChatGPT at work. So I thought I would share the top three ways that you could use AI in the form of something like ChatGPT so that you too could use it to be faster and more productive at work. 

But before I start, can I let you in on a little secret? We’ve actually hired some amazing new clinicians in the last two weeks and I cannot believe the quality of the candidates that are coming to apply to work at Abilities. It’s so amazing. These are smart, creative, and some of them are very experienced professionals. 

I consider myself so lucky to be working with them and to have them join this team of therapists. And I know that I’m biased, I get that. But the clinicians that I work with, I love them so much and they are such amazing clinical professionals. It’s so fun. 

I do, though, have a few spots open. And as you may know, and if you don’t know, we’re very strategic. And specifically, I’m very strategic in when and how we hire. So if you’re interested in seeing if we can help you to create a bigger impact for you and your clients, I’d really invite you to just check out our website and that will show the current positions that are available. 

As a listener of the podcast, you don’t even have to create a resume. Just send me an email, let me know that you’re a listener. And then we can skip the resume part and schedule your confidential conversation to see if we might even be a good fit for you. I’m really proud to say we actually just hired a podcast listener from another province just last month, and that next person just could be you. 

Now, I love hearing about how other people are using technology in their work. So earlier this month I actually asked in a Facebook group of clinicians that I’m in, how they use ChatGPT at work. And I have to tell you, the answers were fascinating. And just to have full integrity on this, I had to ask ChatGPT on how they saw themselves being used as a clinician. Isn’t that wild, asking ChatGPT how to use ChatGPT as a clinician? 

So when I asked ChatGPT how clinicians like us could use ChatGPT at work, it gave me a good few solid suggestions at the beginning. So in broad strokes, it talked about using it to analyze data sets, automating routine tasks, and optimizing workflows. And it also suggested using it for content recommendations and decision support. I thought those were some pretty solid suggestions. 

Now, of course, AI is a tool. So before we move forward, like any other tool, the tool of AI and more specifically ChatGPT, of course, it’s going to have limitations. And those limitations are going to become much more obvious when we forget to edit it for both content and voice. And I actually like that the current version of ChatGPT means that it still actually requires my own critical thinking when I use it to get to that standard that I’m looking for moving forward. 

It feels like, to me, it kind of does the first 80% of the job that I’m trying to do. And I like that because often, starting the job is the hardest part of the job. So I love that it’s getting me to that first 80%. And then I get to use my own mind with my own voice, my own thoughts, my own feelings and purpose and create that final 20%. So that allows me to really just carry it out and really make it my own. 

So here are three ways that I would suggest that you could possibly use ChatGPT in your work today. The first area is really around education and communication. So ChatGPT is a great place to generate both potential questions and answers for those that we serve. There are clinicians that I know that are using AI right now to create things like social stories, home programs, lesson plans for social skills, frameworks for workshops, and even using it in sessions with clients by asking ChatGPT questions and seeing what it says. 

I know that I’ve used it to start a tricky email that I had to do. And it’s even helped me with podcast episode titles and frameworks. So if you’re liking the titles even more, you can thank the help of ChatGPT to make that happen. 

Secondly, you can start to look at using ChatGPT in your documentation and note taking. Now, I know you know we spend a significant amount of time on documentation and note taking. I don’t think anybody is here to say that they want to do more of that in their lives. ChatGPT can assist you in generating accurate and detailed patient or client progress notes. It can help to create treatment plans and discharge summaries. 

So by dictating or typing in that kind of key information, clinicians can quickly generate more comprehensive documents with the help of AI. And this could help us save a lot of time and ensure that we are more comprehensive in our documentation and meeting any standards, be it from our college or somewhere else that’s important in our documentation. 

I’ve even heard of clinicians using it to create summaries of observation of writing, and even writing and editing reports, of course, with the client or patient identifiers removed. Even for myself, I’ve used it to help to create policies and procedures that align with our health college guidelines as well as our own organizational core values. 

The third area that you might want to look at using ChatGPT is in professional development and research. Now while PubMed and Google Scholar will continue to be some of my go-to places for this kind of research, using ChatGPT is another useful tool to use when looking for professional development and research. 

What I like about ChatGPT versus something like Google is it gives the best of the information with references, especially when I use the prompt to ask them for those references, of course. And it takes some of that time of sifting away some of the things that like Google Scholar will do. I don’t have to sift through some of those hits that come up. 

Also, if I have a question based on the material that ChatGPT has just found for me, I can just simply ask the question and to expand on that based on the information it already found. So I don’t have to redo another search. It will search based on what I’ve done in the past. 

So ChatGPT has really helped me to be much more efficient and effective in my professional development and research. And again, while I’ve touched on it before, let me be really clear right now, while ChatGPT can be a super valuable tool in all three of these contexts, of course, it should never replace the expertise and judgment of us as clinicians. 

And as of right now, we have the power to make sure that that doesn’t happen. So we want to use this kind of AI as a supplementary resource. And of course, exercise our own clinical judgment when making decisions. Also, either patient or client data privacy and ethical considerations, of course, are going to need to be carefully managed when implementing these kinds of tools in this healthcare or community setting. Even ChatGPT said so when I asked it about the limitations. 

Again, what I really like about ChatGPT is how easily accessible it is to us, ironically, through Google. And as of right now, it’s free of charge. So my question for you to ponder is what would you try it out with next? I love the thought that this tool can really help supercharge our own clinical brains by allowing us to focus on our own voice and our own context. So I love it to be able to use your own mindfulness on how we create a bigger impact for ourselves and our clients next. 

So here’s my invitation, give it a try and let me know how it goes. I would love to know and share what you find helpful with Chap GPT. Have an amazing week, and I will talk to you soon.

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Thanks for joining me this week on the Clinicians Creating Impact podcast. Want to learn more about the work I’m doing with Abilities Rehabilitation? Head on over to abilitiesrehabilitation.com. See you next week.