  Electronic health records contain detailed information about the medical
condition of patients, but they are difficult for patients to understand even
if they have access to them. We explore whether ChatGPT (GPT 4) can help
explain multidisciplinary team (MDT) reports to colorectal and prostate cancer
patients. These reports are written in dense medical language and assume
clinical knowledge, so they are a good test of the ability of ChatGPT to
explain complex medical reports to patients. We asked clinicians and lay people
(not patients) to review explanations and responses of ChatGPT. We also ran
three focus groups (including cancer patients, caregivers, computer scientists,
and clinicians) to discuss output of ChatGPT. Our studies highlighted issues
with inaccurate information, inappropriate language, limited personalization,
AI distrust, and challenges integrating large language models (LLMs) into
clinical workflow. These issues will need to be resolved before LLMs can be
used to explain complex personal medical information to patients.
