Many South Africans visiting a new general practitioner, specialist, or doctor still face the same old problem of filling in paperwork to open their medical file, which is physically archived and retrieved only when needed.
Image credit: Katie Huber-Rhoades on Dupe Photos
Outside South Africa, PYMNTS.com reports that Google and NASA are testing the “Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant,” an AI-powered system to help astronauts with their healthcare needs during extended space missions to the moon.
Biohacking and AI have redefined what a medical file is created with, utilising digital data.
More importantly, where does regulated healthcare start and self-improvement stop?
According to Worldhealth.net, using a collection of smart devices, software and AI, many can track vital signs, “predict” health outcomes and take measures to enhance their longevity.
Tech wearables, health data and AI are starting to create questions about what roles doctors and “health coaches” have in our lives.
Each tech brand has its fair share of pay-to-play models, subscriptions, accuracy issues and most recently, mainstream health regulation issues.
Let’s analyse the key questions below.
SA’s health leaders are adopting AI at a rapid pace
Whoop – health coach or medical device?
The consumer tech brand Whoop recently faced regulatory pressure from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) internationally over its introduction of a blood pressure monitoring feature in its devices.
AI-powered health coaching features — such as their recent push to introduce a blood pressure monitoring tool — they increasingly face regulatory scrutiny from registered healthcare authorities.
Whoop’s recent pushback against the FDA’s oversight signals growing tensions between tech companies aiming to provide wellness insights and regulators insisting on rigorous validation for anything resembling a medical device.
This highlights the need to clearly define the boundary between consumer health coaching and regulated medical diagnostics.
Other brands joining the race
Garmin has had a coach in its Garmin Connect app for some time, but Whoop and other leading tech brands are accelerating AI-powered health coaching.
Google added an AI health coach in the redesigned Fitbit app, Samsung is developing an AI healthcare coach for its wearables and Apple’s “Project Mulberry” aims to offer an AI health coach next year with iOS.
These updates clearly show the tech industry shifting towards AI-driven, personalised health tools being labelled as coaches.
South Africa and ChatGPT
BusinessTech indicated that South Africa ranks in the top 10 countries globally for respondents who admitted to using artificial intelligence (AI), specifically, ChatGPT from OpenAI.
But there are still many concerns with OpenAI’s latest model, almost two and a half years after ChatGPT’s first launch.
Red flags
‘’As AI becomes increasingly embedded in clinical practice, concerns around reliability, ethics, accountability, and regulation become more pressing,” alerted legal experts at Werksmans Attorneys.
AI tools need access to sensitive patient data, raising questions about protection and transparency.
Regulations like HIPAA and POPIA exist to safeguard such information, but challenges around third-party access are not going away.
For example, Business Standard reported that OpenAI recently removed a chat-sharing feature after privacy concerns surfaced about its data being potentially indexed by Google.
The latest OpenAI GPT-5 model was referred to as “PhD level’”.
But accuracy concerns referred to as ‘“hallucinations” still exist 9.6% of the time according to the GPT-5 system card.
Who is responsible?
Legal responsibility for AI-related medical errors is also unclear.
Physicians may deflect liability to AI developers, who in turn argue that final treatment decisions lie with doctors.
As AI’s healthcare role grows, clarifying accountability — whether with developers, providers, or others—is crucial to ensure patient safety and trust, as advised by News Medical
Do I need a doctor or a health coach?
Discovery Health Pathways was launched earlier this year, and in their press release look at the bigger picture as ‘’transforming health through the right habits and the data-driven case for positive change.’’
Dr Ron Whelan, CEO of Discovery Health, further explained, “By combining access to rich data sets with behavioural economics, advanced predictive technologies, AI, and data science modelling, we open the door to highly specific, targeted and personalised health interventions – all tailored for greatest impact on the individual.”
Damian McHugh, chief marketing officer at Momentum Health, recently shared that “making quality healthcare more accessible, while enabling and rewarding healthy, preventative habits, can lead to complete physical and mental health and wellbeing.
“Investing in access and wellbeing is a powerful pathway to realising more wealth and more health for more South Africans.”
The lines blur between data-driven insights, gamification and personal behaviour change for “health” using different versions of a coach or a real human doctor.
Are we making decisions based on research from human practitioners or data with some minor hallucinations?
As many brands have positioned themselves, their products are labelled as “thought partners, coaches or tools” and not in replacement of a general medical practitioner.
Are AI coaches going to make us healthier? Or just more anxious and confused about how we track, use and store our health data?
