Cited by 175Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and EducationEthics and Social Impacts of AIArtificial Intelligence Applications

A Call to Address AI “Hallucinations” and How Healthcare Professionals Can Mitigate Their Risks

Open access
Hatem, Rami, Simmons, Brianna, Thornton, Joseph E·2023·Cureus

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed society in many ways. AI in medicine has the potential to improve medical care and reduce healthcare professional burnout but we must be cautious of a phenomenon termed "AI hallucinations"and how this term can lead to the stigmatization of AI systems and persons who experience hallucinations. We believe the term "AI misinformation" to be more appropriate and avoids contributing to stigmatization. Healthcare professionals can play an important role in AI's integration into medicine, especially regarding mental health services, so it is important that we continue to critically evaluate AI systems as they emerge.

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  • The quality, scope, and currency of data accessible to LLMs are relevant to their clinical performance.

    “The quality, scope, and currency of data accessible to LLMs are relevant to their clinical performance.86,101,106”

    From Large Language Models in Pharmacist-Led Direct Patient Care: A Rapid Review of Published Evaluations (2026) · cites this paper as [101]

    The Editorial (page not specified) says LLMs are only as accurate as the information provided to them and calls for more diverse, representative datasets, supporting the relevance of data quality and scope to clinical use. It calls for continuous improvement of available data but does not specifically address whether the currency of that data affects clinical performance. (LLM, conf=0.83)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Advanced AI systems have the ability to produce hallucinations-fictitious or fabricated output presented as fact.

    “Advanced AI systems have the ability to produce “hallucinations” – fictious or fabricated output which is presented as fact [13].”

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Authors
Hatem, R., Simmons, B., & Thornton, J. E.
Affiliations
University of Florida Health (US)
Corresponding author
Thornton, Joseph E
Venue
Cureus
Published
2023-09-05
Volume
15
Issue
9
Pages
e44720-e44720
ISSN
2168-8184 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W4386459994
Cited by
175
References
4
Citations by year
2026: 49 · 2025: 86 · 2024: 39 · 2020: 1
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Cureus (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Health Informatics › Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Artificial Intelligence Applications
Keywords
AI hallucination, AI misinformation, artificial intelligence in healthcare, healthcare workers, mental health services, risk mitigation, burnout

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