AI Tool Tested in Kenyan Primary Clinics Shows Mixed Results

A randomized trial evaluated AI Consult, a decision-support system that uses OpenAI’s GPT-4o to scan clinicians’ electronic notes and flag potential problems with green, yellow, or red alerts. The study involved nearly 10,000 patient encounters across 16 primary-care clinics operated by Penda Health in Nairobi, Kenya. Half of the clinicians typed notes into a computer equipped with AI Consult, while the other half used standard note-taking software.

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In low-resource settings, clinicians often see five to six patients per hour without specialist backup. Vyonne Njeri, a registered clinical officer, described the AI as a “second pair of eyes” that helped her notice a congenital heart defect in an infant that she might otherwise have missed. The trial, published this summer in *Nature Medicine*, was funded by the Gates Foundation and conducted in partnership with the global-health nonprofit PATH.

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• Scope: ~10,000 encounters, 16 clinics.

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• Cost: Approximately $0.04 per patient.

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• Outcome metric: Treatment failures (death or unresolved symptoms).

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• Result: A 23 % reduction in treatment failures was observed, but the change was not statistically significant because such events are rare in primary care.

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• Power analysis: Dr. Bilal Mateen, chief AI officer at PATH, noted that detecting a meaningful difference would require about 139,000 participants.

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• Dr. Bilal Mateen (PATH) emphasized that prompting clinicians with “information-as-an-intervention” could have an “important incremental effect” on care quality.

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• **Dr. He highlighted the potential for AI to expand access to timely, consistent medical care.

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• “That's something I would have missed on any other day,” — Vyonne Njeri — Vyonne Njeri, clinical officer, Nairobi, Kenya.

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