scholarly journals Patient and Consumer Safety Risks When Using Conversational Assistants for Medical Information: An Observational Study of Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy W. Bickmore ◽  
Ha Trinh ◽  
Stefan Olafsson ◽  
Teresa K O'Leary ◽  
Reza Asadi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Medical Information ◽  
Healthcare Research ◽  
Patient Harm ◽  
Medical Problems ◽  
Safety Issues ◽  
Consumer Safety ◽  
Safety Risks ◽  
Potential Safety ◽  
College Educated ◽  
Medical Task

BACKGROUND Conversational assistants, such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, are ubiquitous and are beginning to be used as portals for medical services. However, the potential safety issues of using conversational assistants for medical information by patients and consumers are not understood. OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence and nature of the harm that could result from patients or consumers using conversational assistants for medical information. METHODS Participants were given medical problems to pose to Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant, and asked to determine an action to take based on information from the system. Assignment of tasks and systems were randomized across participants, and participants queried the conversational assistants in their own words, making as many attempts as needed until they either reported an action to take or gave up. Participant-reported actions for each medical task were rated for patient harm using an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality harm scale. RESULTS Fifty-four subjects completed the study with a mean age of 42 years (SD 18). Twenty-nine (54%) were female, 31 (57%) Caucasian, and 26 (50%) were college educated. Only 8 (15%) reported using a conversational assistant regularly, while 22 (41%) had never used one, and 24 (44%) had tried one “a few times.“ Forty-four (82%) used computers regularly. Subjects were only able to complete 168 (43%) of their 394 tasks. Of these, 49 (29%) reported actions that could have resulted in some degree of patient harm, including 27 (16%) that could have resulted in death. CONCLUSIONS Reliance on conversational assistants for actionable medical information represents a safety risk for patients and consumers. Patients should be cautioned to not use these technologies for answers to medical questions they intend to act on without further consultation from a health care provider.

scholarly journals Mitigating Patient and Consumer Safety Risks When Using Conversational Assistants for Medical Information: Exploratory Mixed Methods Experiment

10.2196/30704 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (11) ◽  
pp. e30704
Author(s):  
Timothy W Bickmore ◽  
Stefán Ólafsson ◽  
Teresa K O'Leary
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Health Professional ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Medical Advice ◽  
Medical Problems ◽  
Consumer Safety ◽  
Safety Risks ◽  
Query Understanding ◽  
College Educated

Background Prior studies have demonstrated the safety risks when patients and consumers use conversational assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa for obtaining medical information. Objective The aim of this study is to evaluate two approaches to reducing the likelihood that patients or consumers will act on the potentially harmful medical information they receive from conversational assistants. Methods Participants were given medical problems to pose to conversational assistants that had been previously demonstrated to result in potentially harmful recommendations. Each conversational assistant’s response was randomly varied to include either a correct or incorrect paraphrase of the query or a disclaimer message—or not—telling the participants that they should not act on the advice without first talking to a physician. The participants were then asked what actions they would take based on their interaction, along with the likelihood of taking the action. The reported actions were recorded and analyzed, and the participants were interviewed at the end of each interaction. Results A total of 32 participants completed the study, each interacting with 4 conversational assistants. The participants were on average aged 42.44 (SD 14.08) years, 53% (17/32) were women, and 66% (21/32) were college educated. Those participants who heard a correct paraphrase of their query were significantly more likely to state that they would follow the medical advice provided by the conversational assistant (χ21=3.1; P=.04). Those participants who heard a disclaimer message were significantly more likely to say that they would contact a physician or health professional before acting on the medical advice received (χ21=43.5; P=.001). Conclusions Designers of conversational systems should consider incorporating both disclaimers and feedback on query understanding in response to user queries for medical advice. Unconstrained natural language input should not be used in systems designed specifically to provide medical advice.

scholarly journals Mitigating Patient and Consumer Safety Risks When Using Conversational Assistants for Medical Information: Exploratory Mixed Methods Experiment (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy W Bickmore ◽  
Stefán Ólafsson ◽  
Teresa K O'Leary
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Health Professional ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Medical Advice ◽  
Medical Problems ◽  
Consumer Safety ◽  
Safety Risks ◽  
Query Understanding ◽  
College Educated

BACKGROUND Prior studies have demonstrated the safety risks when patients and consumers use conversational assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa for obtaining medical information. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to evaluate two approaches to reducing the likelihood that patients or consumers will act on the potentially harmful medical information they receive from conversational assistants. METHODS Participants were given medical problems to pose to conversational assistants that had been previously demonstrated to result in potentially harmful recommendations. Each conversational assistant’s response was randomly varied to include either a correct or incorrect paraphrase of the query or a disclaimer message—or not—telling the participants that they should not act on the advice without first talking to a physician. The participants were then asked what actions they would take based on their interaction, along with the likelihood of taking the action. The reported actions were recorded and analyzed, and the participants were interviewed at the end of each interaction. RESULTS A total of 32 participants completed the study, each interacting with 4 conversational assistants. The participants were on average aged 42.44 (SD 14.08) years, 53% (17/32) were women, and 66% (21/32) were college educated. Those participants who heard a correct paraphrase of their query were significantly more likely to state that they would follow the medical advice provided by the conversational assistant (<i>χ</i><sup>2</sup><sub>1</sub>=3.1; <i>P</i>=.04). Those participants who heard a disclaimer message were significantly more likely to say that they would contact a physician or health professional before acting on the medical advice received (<i>χ</i><sup>2</sup><sub>1</sub>=43.5; <i>P</i>=.001). CONCLUSIONS Designers of conversational systems should consider incorporating both disclaimers and feedback on query understanding in response to user queries for medical advice. Unconstrained natural language input should not be used in systems designed specifically to provide medical advice. CLINICALTRIAL

scholarly journals Patient and Consumer Safety Risks When Using Conversational Assistants for Medical Information: An Observational Study of Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant

10.2196/11510 ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. e11510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy W Bickmore ◽  
Ha Trinh ◽  
Stefan Olafsson ◽  
Teresa K O'Leary ◽  
Reza Asadi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Observational Study ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Consumer Safety ◽  
Safety Risks

Revealing Safety Risks of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Construction

2021 ◽  
pp. 036119812110171
Author(s):  
Mostafa Namian ◽  
Mohammad Khalid ◽  
George Wang ◽  
Yelda Turkan
Keyword(s):  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
The United States ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Safety Risks ◽  
Potential Safety ◽  
Post Hoc

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have gained their prevalent recognition in construction because of their exceptional advantages. Despite the increasing use of UAVs in the industry and their remarkable benefits, there are serious potential safety risks associated that have been overlooked. Construction is one of the most hazardous industries in the United States. In addition to the ordinary hazards normally present in dynamic construction workplaces, UAVs can expose workers to a wider range of never-before-seen safety risks that must be recognized and controlled. The industry is not equipped with safety measures to prevent potential accidents, because of scarce research on drone-associated hazards and risks. The aim of this research was to (1) identify the UAV-associated hazards in construction that may expose personnel and property to potential harms, and (2) study the relative impact of each hazard and the associated safety risks. In Phase I, the researchers conducted an extensive literature review and consulted with a construction UAV expert. In Phase II, the researchers obtained data from 54 construction experts validating and evaluating the identified hazards and risks. The results revealed that adopting UAVs can expose construction projects to a variety of hazards that the industry is not familiar with. “Collision with properties,”“collision with humans,” and “distraction” were identified as the top three safety risks. Moreover, the study introduces effective strategies, such as having qualified crew members, proper drone model selection, and drone maintenance, to mitigate the safety risks. Finally, a post-hoc case study was investigated and presented in this article.

Identifying Health and Safety Risks for Childcare Workers

AAOHN Journal ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 55 (8) ◽  
pp. 321-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Belinda J. McGrath
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Occupational Health ◽  
Workplace Health Promotion ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Workplace Health ◽  
Safety Issues ◽  
Safety Risks ◽  
Health Promotion Programs ◽  
Childcare Workers ◽  
Health And Safety Risks

Childcare workers are exposed to several health and safety risks in their work environment, the most common being infectious diseases, musculoskeletal injuries, accidents, and occupational stress. Pregnant childcare workers have an additional risk of potential harm to the fetus. Occupational health nurses can work collaboratively with childcare workers to reduce these risks and provide workplace health promotion programs. This article explores the occupational health and safety issues for childcare workers and suggests health promotion strategies that could be implemented by occupational health nurses working in this arena.

Comparative Salmonella Spp. and Listeria monocytogenes Inactivation Rates in Four Commercial Mayonnaise Products

1991 ◽  
Vol 54 (12) ◽  
pp. 913-916 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN P. ERICKSON ◽  
PHYLLIS JENKINS
Keyword(s):  
Acetic Acid ◽  
Listeria Monocytogenes ◽  
Aqueous Phase ◽  
Population Declines ◽  
Salmonella Spp ◽  
Egg White Lysozyme ◽  
Consumer Safety ◽  
Safety Risks ◽  
Broad Cross Section ◽  
Formula Composition

Salmonella spp. and Listeria monocytogenes strains were inoculated into four commercial mayonnaise products: sandwich spread, real mayonnaise, reduced calorie mayonnaise dressing, and cholesterol-free reduced calorie mayonnaise dressing. Products represented a broad cross-section of aqueous phase acetic acid, salt, sucrose, and other compositional factors. Results showed that Salmonella spp. inactivation rates were unaffected by formula composition. The organism was rapidly inactivated, decreasing ≥8 log10 CFU/g in ≤72 h, in each of the four products. L. monocytogenes inactivation rates were directly correlated with aqueous phase acetic acid concentrations as follows: sandwich spread ≥ real mayonnaise &gt; cholesterol-free reduced calorie mayonnaise dressing &gt; reduced calorie mayonnaise dressing. L. monocytogenes inactivation rate in sandwich spread and real mayonnaise was similar to Salmonella spp. The reduced calorie mayonnaise dressings showed gradual, incremental population declines. L. monocytogenes decreased 3 and 5 log10 CFU/g in 72 h in reduced calorie and cholesterol-free reduced calorie mayonnaise dressings, respectively. The higher anti-listerial activity in the cholesterol free formulation was attributed to egg white lysozyme. This study documented that commercial mayonnaise, including reduced calorie mayonnaise dressing varieties, represent negligible consumer safety risks.

scholarly journals Fine-grained lineage for safer notebook interactions

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1093-1101
Author(s):  
Stephen Macke ◽  
Hongpu Gong ◽  
Doris Jung-Lin Lee ◽  
Andrew Head ◽  
Doris Xin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Static Analysis ◽  
Intermediate State ◽  
Data Science ◽  
Safety Issues ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Potential Safety

Computational notebooks have emerged as the platform of choice for data science and analytical workflows, enabling rapid iteration and exploration. By keeping intermediate program state in memory and segmenting units of execution into so-called "cells", notebooks allow users to enjoy particularly tight feedback. However, as cells are added, removed, reordered, and rerun, this hidden intermediate state accumulates, making execution behavior difficult to reason about, and leading to errors and lack of reproducibility. We present nbsafety, a custom Jupyter kernel that uses runtime tracing and static analysis to automatically manage lineage associated with cell execution and global notebook state. nbsafety detects and prevents errors that users make during unaided notebook interactions, all while preserving the flexibility of existing notebook semantics. We evaluate nbsafety's ability to prevent erroneous interactions by replaying and analyzing 666 real notebook sessions. Of these, nbsafety identified 117 sessions with potential safety errors, and in the remaining 549 sessions, the cells that nbsafety identified as resolving safety issues were more than 7X more likely to be selected by users for re-execution compared to a random baseline, even though the users were not using nbsafety and were therefore not influenced by its suggestions.

scholarly journals Neurologic Safety Monitoring of COVID-19 Vaccines: Lessons From the Past to Inform the Present

Neurology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 10.1212/WNL.0000000000012703
Author(s):  
Kiran Teresa Thakur ◽  
Samantha Epstein ◽  
Amanda Bilski ◽  
Alanna Balbi ◽  
Amelia K Boehme ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Events ◽  
Adenovirus Vector ◽  
Safety Monitoring ◽  
Current Data ◽  
Significant Morbidity ◽  
Medical Interventions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Safety Risks ◽  
Potential Safety ◽  
Neurological Conditions

The spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has triggered a global effort to rapidly develop and deploy effective and safe COVID-19 vaccination(s). Vaccination has been one of the most effective medical interventions in human history, though potential safety risks of novel vaccines must be monitored, identified, and quantified. Adverse events must be carefully assessed to define whether they are causally associated with vaccination or coincidence. Neurological adverse events following immunizations are overall rare but with significant morbidity and mortality when they occur. Here, we review neurological conditions seen in the context of prior vaccinations and the current data to date on select COVID-19 vaccines including mRNA vaccine(s) and the adenovirus-vector COVID-19 vaccines, ChAdOx1 nCOV-19 (AstraZeneca) and Ad26.COV2.S Johnson and Johnson (Janssen/J&J).

Politicization of discussions of Covid-19 on Twitter

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (6) ◽  
pp. 3-11
Author(s):  
Irina G. Ovchinnikova ◽  
◽  
Liana M. Ermakova ◽  
Diana M. Nurbakova ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Information Cascades ◽  
Medical Problems ◽  
Significant Information ◽  
Information Distortion ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
English Speaking

Power of social media including Twitter for English speaking community to shape public opinion becomes critical during the current pandemic because of misinformation. The existing studies on spreading misinformation on social media hypothesise that the initial message is fake. In contrast, we focus on information distortion occurring in cascades as the initial message about the Covid-19 treatment is quoted or receives a reply. Public persons discuss medical information on Twitter providing fast and simple response to complex medical problems that users find very attractive to follow. Followers generate information cascades while quoting and commenting on the initial message. In the cascades, medical information from the initial tweet is often distorted. The discussion of the Covid-19 treatment in the cascades is politicized according to users’ political sympathies. We show a significant information shift in cascades initiated by public figures during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study provide valuable insights for the semantic analysis of information distortion.

Consumer Safety

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Vogel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Regulatory Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Pharmaceutical Regulation ◽  
Regulatory Policies ◽  
Consumer Safety ◽  
Safety Risks ◽  
European Regulatory ◽  
Drug Lag ◽  
Important Exception

This chapter analyzes European and American policies toward a range of consumer safety risks; including drugs, children's products, and cosmetics. It shows how European and American risk regulations have converged, though the dynamics through which this occurred differed substantially. Pharmaceutical regulation constitutes the most important exception to the broader pattern of increased transatlantic regulatory policy divergence. What makes this area of regulatory policy distinctive is that its political salience increased in the United States but not in Europe. Pharmaceutical regulation also represents an important exception to the dominant pattern of transatlantic regulatory policy diffusion. In this case, European regulatory policies did affect those of the United States, first by highlighting the transatlantic drug lag, and more recently by American decisions to adopt some European practices to expedite drug approvals.

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