Dr. Stephen W. Wheat Earns AI Prompting Certificate To Improve Care for His Patients

Northwest Louisiana Advanced Diagnostic Specialist Dr. Stephen W. Wheat values the benefits Artificial Intelligence (AI) is bringing to medicine and recently earned the Certificate of AI Prompting from LSU Online & Continuing Education.

“I believe AI presents compelling solutions to challenges facing the healthcare system today. With AI, we can have better and faster diagnostics, therapeutics, billing, dictation, transcription, EMR and more. We are on the edge of a big discovery with this transformative technology. AI will not replace doctors but will give a patient the opportunity to choose a physician who knows how to use every tool available to give an accurate diagnosis and to offer the latest treatment options available to get a person back to good health,” says Dr. Wheat.

The benefits of using AI in medicine are being seen in many areas including giving greater health care access to patients in rural areas with telehealth and tele rehab to bridge gaps where specialists or rehab serves may be scarce. By automating documentation and administrative tasks, AI is allowing physicians to spend more quality time on the care of their patients. AI is also granting physicians greater access to analytics that allows for early and more accurate detection of disease.

Similarly recent advancements in medicine are fundamentally altering how physicians practice. mRNA vaccine technology as was used with COVID-19 treatments is now being developed for trials to treat influenza, RSV, and even cancer. Wearable and continuous monitoring devices are providing real-time, high volume data streams such as glucose monitors, implantable loop recorders to monitor arrhythmias, smart watches to detect AFib, and cuffless BP monitors.

Linking the rapidly changing advancements in the medical world with the rapidly changing advancements in AI seem to go hand-in-hand for advancing care for patients.

Dr. Wheat believes so strongly in AI’s impact on medicine that he is currently enrolled in a second AI course, this one offered from Harvard Medical School Executive Education, that will teach him how to better use AI and why this progressive practicum will be of great benefit to his patients and fellow referring physicians.