Docistra AI Can Make Mistakes
Why the Doctor Assistant can sometimes give wrong or misleading answers, and how to check what it tells you
The Doctor Assistant tries to be helpful, and sometimes that means it gives an answer that is wrong or misleading. That's why the line under the message box always starts with Docistra AI can make mistakes.
Why it happens
The Assistant runs on a large language model. Models like this can produce text that reads well and sounds sure of itself but is not true. This is often called hallucination, and it's a known limit of today's AI, not something specific to Docistra.
In practice, it can:
- Misread your data. It looks answers up in Docistra, but it can pick the wrong patient with a similar name, the wrong visit, or the wrong date.
- Fill gaps with guesses. When a record is missing something, it may guess instead of saying it doesn't know.
- Sort a paper wrongly. An uploaded lab or scan paper can get the wrong type, title or date.
- Get medical facts wrong or out of date. Its general medical knowledge comes from training, can be old, and can be wrong even when it sounds confident.
- Misquote. A number, dose or quote can look exact and still be made up.
How to use it safely
- Don't treat it as the only source. Check anything important against the patient's record, the original paper, or a trusted reference.
- You make the clinical decisions. The Assistant is not a doctor. Diagnoses, prescriptions and doses are your call.
- Open the source. When an answer points to a patient, a visit or a file, open it and check the details yourself.
- Read before you confirm. Nothing is saved to a patient until you tap to confirm. Check the patient, type and date first.
- Review artifacts before you share them. Read every artifact before you print it or send it to a patient.
Never rely on the Assistant alone for anything that affects a patient's care, such as a dose, an allergy or a lab value. Always check the record.
Tell us when it's wrong
- Tap the thumbs down under a reply that was wrong or unhelpful. It helps us improve the Assistant.
- For anything else, write to support@docistra.com.