The growing integration of AI chatbots into healthcare communications represents a potential paradigm shift in patient education, particularly for complex surgical procedures where understanding directly impacts outcomes and anxiety levels. This development matters because millions of patients worldwide undergo knee replacement surgery annually, and their comprehension of the procedure significantly influences recovery success and psychological preparedness.
A randomized controlled trial involving 100 knee arthritis patients compared ChatGPT and Google Gemini's ability to answer surgical questions. Each patient posed five questions about total knee arthroplasty to both platforms, with responses evaluated by blinded orthopedic specialists and patients themselves on 10-point scales. ChatGPT achieved significantly higher accuracy scores from specialists (8.7 versus 7.2) and patient satisfaction ratings (8.9 versus 7.5). The most pronounced difference emerged in explaining surgical procedures, where ChatGPT scored 9.2 compared to Gemini's lower performance.
This finding carries broader implications beyond knee surgery, suggesting that AI platform selection could meaningfully impact patient education quality across medical specialties. The study's strength lies in its dual evaluation approach, incorporating both expert medical assessment and patient perspectives. However, the research focuses on a single surgical specialty and doesn't address long-term retention of AI-provided information or real-world implementation challenges. As healthcare systems increasingly adopt AI-assisted patient communication, these performance differences could influence which platforms become standard in clinical settings, potentially affecting patient outcomes at scale.