AI chatbot use to identify medication interactions really helped these travelers
Older Americans do not often use AI chatbot tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot to receive health information (University of Michigan 2025), and that was true also for my interviews with 22 fellow US travelers ages 63+ in late summer 2025.
But in that group of 22, two of the travelers credited an AI tool with helping them continue on the two-week trip in the face of emerging health challenges. This suggests that travelers who do not think to use an AI chatbot may be missing out on health-related benefits, even if they don’t realize it.
Both were taking a medication daily to prevent altitude sickness, then:
One experienced problems sleeping, and wondered if they could take a second drug to help with that. ChatGPT gave “a hard stop” and explained that the proposed sleep aid would cancel the effects of the altitude sickness prevention drug. The traveler then admitted that that also explained why they felt so bad, because they had tried it the previous night without asking ChatGPT. They stopped taking the combination, and began to feel better.
Another began having motion sickness symptoms, which a different medication could relieve. They asked ChatGPT if they could take the two together, and used the sources ChatGPT listed to verify directly that it was fine to take both, which worked out well.
A recent AARP poll found 68% of those over age 60 were planning to travel in 2025, with 44% eyeing an international trip. The above examples highlight how helpful AI can be when people are outside their normal health environment and need answers quickly. Other patients on our trip suffered other symptoms, and to wit, the CDC reports that 43-79% of travelers to low- and middle-income countries (which fits our trip) become ill during or after travel.
Could health care teams play a greater role pre-travel in supporting patients on how to use AI safely?
The future could see medical offices giving interested travel-prep patients a handout to connect them with information on how AI tools could help them explore next steps if unexpected symptoms emerge, and useful ways to cross-check the chatbot’s information.
It isn’t happening now. To reach that point would probably require a consensus process to approve standard content of the AI use advice for travelers to ensure that it is as safe as possible. It could steer the patient to a successfully-tested AI chatbot and explain how to cross-check with trusted sources. The handout would also acknowledge remaining risks, so that health care teams wouldn’t be tempted to withhold useful advice for fear of medical liability.
How can we reach a point where all patients have access to AI tools that have been successfully tested for medication inquiries (at least), at a minimum during travel abroad?
To identify tools as successfully tested, more rapid-cycle research will be needed to test accuracy with more of the available AI chatbots—and keep up as they improve. A recent study showed that one AI chatbot (ChatGPT-4), which at this time is usually not free, provided accurate and highly explanatory medication information compared to human pharmacists (Albogami et al. 2024). However, that and two other studies found higher rates of inaccuracy or incompleteness when free versions of an AI chatbot (ChatGPT, and Bing Copilot) were used, in ways that were potentially harmful for a non-trivial portion of the tested queries (ASHP 2023, Andrikayan et al. 2024).
Once accurate, reliable AI chatbots are identified for this purpose, it will be up to journalists and patient advocacy organizations such as AARP to make them available and known to travelers, hopefully in partnership with the tech companies, the health care industry, and government agencies that promote health.
Meanwhile, I know when I travel abroad I’ll be consulting a chatbot should health issues emerge – and then cross-checking sources, of course!
This is the second post based on the Healthcare For the People by the People project, self-funded by Bluemont Health Consulting LLC. For more details about the sample and method, see the end of the first post in this series: “What do a group of older American travelers think are high priorities for improving Americans’ health?”