How Health Systems Are Incorporating AI into the Search for a Doctor

Often times, choosing a doctor can feel overwhelming. Patients may be facing new symptoms and require a specialist, they may have moved to a new city and need a new care team, or they may be navigating insurance changes that require them to start the search all over again. While factors like insurance network status, location of the doctor’s office and appointment availability remain key, modern-day patients treat the provider search process as they would with any major online purchase. Reading reviews and comparing options are core actions baked into the decision-making process—which Stanford Health Care facilitates with AI-generated summaries of each doctor’s ratings on their search results page.

On its public site search, Stanford Health Care strategically places the AI summaries below the doctor’s overall ratings but above the list of individual comments from each patient. This ensures that patients still see the doctor’s overall rating—which is out of five stars—while sparing them from scrolling through hundreds of reviews. The placement also mimics Google’s AI Overviews which also appear at the top, signaling that even in healthcare, the summary-first approach is becoming a new standard for how consumers absorb information.

The health system notes that the AI summaries are based on reviews from the last two years and are updated every six months, ensuring that patients are receiving the most up-to-date information. Stanford Health Care also does not generate AI summaries if a doctor has fewer than 10 reviews, recognizing that a summary of only a few responses can misrepresent a doctor and possibly mislead patients making critical decisions about their care team. Interestingly, if there are inconsistent themes in the reviews, a doctor’s profile may not have an AI summary; this again points to the health system’s commitment to accuracy over convenience.

As today’s consumers increasingly turn to AI tools for many aspects of their lives, the integration of AI into the provider search process signals a new era of integration between healthcare and technology—one that is already playing out across other industries. Corporate Insight’s continuous tracking of digital innovation across various financial service sectors shows that Principal introduced an AI-Generated Answer feature to its public site search tool last June. It again mimics the AI Overviews that appear on Google searches, but users can notably toggle the feature on or off, rendering it optional. The tool also provides a list of its cited articles, acknowledging that trust can be a barrier to AI adoption and allowing users to fact check information on their own.

Corporate Insight will continue to monitor how health systems integrate AI capabilities into their digital experiences. For more insights into digital innovation in the healthcare space, check out our subscription research services In four areas: Health System, Health Plan, Medicare and Pharmacy. And don’t forget to check out our Insights section for more industry trends and best practices in the healthcare space.