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RICHLAND, WA - Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are working on improving doctor-patient relationships through new technology.

A team of scientists has been working on this for the past few years. The goal is not to replace a doctor, but to assist them in accurately diagnosing a patient based on their symptoms.

Imagine walking into a doctor's office and using technology like Siri or Google Assistant to help determine a diagnosis based on your symptoms. That's how PNNL scientists envision future doctor-patient care.

"We will have this conversational interface with a system that will help the doctor to collect all different data sources and provide information that will help the doctor have a more precise diagnostic," computer scientist Robert Rallo said.

Creating that conversational interface tool begins with building artificial intelligence models. Doctors' medical knowledge and anonymous patient data is combined, then translated into computer speak.

"With this tool what they can better process all this information and better leverage all the knowledge that this information is providing to them." Rallo said.

The goal is to mimic a doctor's ability to create links between symptoms and diseases. The technology will have more data and connections than can be stored in any human brain.

"You can think of this as a tool that can help doctors process all the information that they have in a much more efficient way," Rallo said.

It could be years before we see this at our next doctor appointment. But, scientists like Rallo believe it has the potential to forever change the medical care system.

"To me, one of the most important aspects of this work is that we are working with real people and we are helping them have much more improved health and health care in general," he said.

In the next phase of research, the PNNL team will work with a new data set. It's part of a collaboration between the Veterans Administration and the Department of Energy.

For more information on this project, you can visit this article on PNNL's website.

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PNNL researchers working to improve doctor-patient care through artificial intelligence - NBC Right Now