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Health·G Space·Evidence-backed gain·Published 2026-07-23

Performance of artificial intelligence in the collection of patient history in general practice

Automating administrative tasks, such as compiling a patient's medical history, could help general practitioners in their daily work. AI performance has improved in recent decades, but skepticism among professionals limits its use in medical practice, due to fears of gaps and biases. This study attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of AI in recording patient histories compared to general practitioners. Cross-sectional study. SITE: Online study in France. French general practitioners recruited online. We compare…

TRV-2026-0518Peer-reviewedPermanent record — cite & verify
Performance of artificial intelligence in the collection of patient history in general practice

Doctors Hospital from the Southwest 1 by Sixflashphoto. CC BY-SA 4.0 · https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

The quick read

In an online cross-sectional study in France with 204 general practitioners and 942 patient histories, researchers compared AI to physicians in recording histories during initial consultations across categories such as chronic disease, surgical, obstetric, occupational, allergies, and family cancer history.

The finding that AI was more effective, especially for older patients and for allergy and family history information, suggests potential to reduce administrative burden in primary care, but adoption remains constrained by concerns about gaps, biases, and data ethics, and performance was reported to vary by age and history type.

Main points
  • Cross-sectional online study in France compared 204 general practitioners with AI, obtaining 942 patient histories.
  • Histories were classified into long-term chronic diseases, medical, surgical, obstetric, occupational, drug allergies, other allergies, and family history of cancer.
  • Authors reported AI advantage was most pronounced in older age groups and in allergy and family history categories.
  • Study framed automation of history compilation as help for GPs' daily administrative work.
Gain

AI collected patient histories more effectively than general practitioners during initial consultations, with stronger performance in older patients and for allergies and family history of cancer.

The rundown

The study was described as a cross-sectional online study in France recruiting French general practitioners online to compare GP versus AI collection of history during an initial consultation.

With 204 GPs the authors obtained 942 patient histories and categorized them into eight types including chronic diseases, surgical, obstetric, occupational, drug allergies, other allergies, and family history of cancer, finding AI more effective overall and particularly for allergies and family history in older groups.

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