Advancing emergency upper extremity care: A pilot study of ChatGPT's potential role in diagnosing and managing hand and wrist trauma.

Purpose: Hand and wrist trauma is a frequent cause of emergency room (ER) visits. However, hospitals often lack immediate hand specialist coverage. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms like ChatGPT in aiding in the diagnosis and patient management of upper extremity trauma.

Methods: Ten clinical vignettes depicting common hand and wrist emergency clinical situations were created by the senior author to represent a broad range of common upper extremity injuries. These were presented to plastic surgery residents and ChatGPT (version 4.0). The responder was tasked to provide a diagnosis, ER management, and definitive treatment plans for each vignette. Responses were collected and scored by two attending plastic surgeons, blinded to the source, on a scale of 0 (poor) to 30 (excellent). Univariate and linear regression models were utilized for analysis.

Results: A total of 16 resident responses (9 junior and 7 senior) and 16 ChatGPT responses were collected for each of the 10 clinical scenarios. ChatGPT had significantly higher total average scores (mean = 26.6 vs. 22.7, p < 0.05) and ER management scores (mean = 9.9 vs. 6.7, p < 0.05) when compared to residents. We did not find any notable differences in diagnosis or definitive treatment scores between residents and ChatGPT responses. However, the study was not sufficiently powered to detect smaller effect sizes in these areas. No apparent correlations between scores and resident year of training were observed.

Conclusions: ChatGPT provided clinically accurate diagnosis and management plans for upper extremity trauma. Implementing AI in trauma management has the potential to improve the management of hand and wrist trauma in emergency settings by serving as a diagnostic and clinical reference tool for emergency medical providers. However, their integration into clinical practice should be carefully evaluated and focused on complementing, and not replacing, traditional consults. Ultimately, these tools could alleviate the burden placed on ERs and limit reliance on hand consults.