Trip Database Blog

We have just started testing our automated Q&A system mentioned here. In short you ask a free-text question and it looks over Trip’s content to generate the best answer. Our medical director’s first tests were very encouraging so we’ve thrown it open to our AI Innovation Circle for additional testing. The initial questions from the ‘Circle’ being:

• Which decreases Migraines more: Magnesium, Zinc, Vitamin D or Omega-3?
• Which decreases Cluster Headaches more: Magnesium, Zinc, Vitamin D or Omega-3?
• Which combination of Magnesium, Zinc, Vitamin D or Omega-3 has been found to decrease headaches?
• How can cluster headaches be quickly stopped?
• What is the best treatment for a migraine?
• What is the QUICKEST treatment for a migraine?
• How does the combination of acetaminophen + caffiene + aspirin for migraine treatment compare to prescription treatments for migraine?
• How do corticosteroids compare to other treatments for preventing migraine recurrence?

We have sent these Qs to our system and have generated two answers per question, one using ChatGPT-4 and the other version 3.5 (ChatGPT describes the difference between the two as “ChatGPT-4 is an advanced iteration of OpenAI’s language model that offers improved understanding and generation of text, enhanced contextual awareness, and greater nuance in responses compared to its predecessor, ChatGPT-3.5.“). Each response takes around 10-15 seconds to generate and, really importantly, these answers are referenced.

We’ve sent the answers back to the people who asked them and we’re awaiting feedback. We know that some of them are suboptimal but we also know how we can improve things. That, ultimately, is the purpose of this proof of concept project – can a Q&A system work based on Trip’s content? Based on our work to date we are absolutely confident that we can make a robust system. Once this project is finished being tested we will take the learning and combine it with the learning from the second project (fully automated evidence reviews) and decide if/how to operationalise one or both of them…

2023 was a great year for Trip.

We continue to have a impressive impact on care around the globe, helping support millions of decisions with evidence-based content. This is Trip’s core function, as such, it’s ‘business as usual’. However, we have continued to improve the site as much as we can and 2023 was full of significant improvements.

First quarter of 2023: A real focus on quality improvement including the way we handle updates to content such as systematic reviews and ongoing clinical trials. We also started work on a major de-duplication effort and ending the quarter by refining our aspirations on quality.

Second quarter of 2023: This is where we really started to explore the potential of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT. We also introduced scoring systems for guidelines and RCTs and a new guideline category for Europe. Finally, our de-duplication efforts saw 143,218 duplicate articles removed from Trip.

Third quarter of 2023: Our user survey results were published which is always interesting for us. We started exploring automated clinical Q&A using LLMs (see here and here). We also started our overhaul of the advanced search and started exploring some improvements to search relevancy.

Fourth quarter of 2023: We finished the year off strongly with the release on the new advanced search and the wonderful connected articles. We continued to push ahead with our LLM work with two main projects occupying our time (as well as a bunch of ideas bubbling away in the background). The two projects being a fully automated evidence review system and a clinical Q&A system. We also announced the creation of the AI Innovation Circle to help us to manage the AI potential/hype. Finally, we announced the main focus for the start of 2024: moving the Trip infrastructure to ‘the cloud’ and, unsurprisingly AI!

All this remarkable progress is supported by having a stable business model that has allowed us to remain independent and grow (as the site improves our income increases; a virtuous cycle)! While subscriptions to Trip Pro is the main source of income our bespoke rapid reviews have boomed in 2023. These are produced for a small group of selected organisations who appreciate our speed, evidence-based approach and cost-effectiveness. If you want to know more please email us.

Oh yes, don’t forget, we are still a ridiculously small organisation.

Another great boost for us is our users, they are wonderful and frequently crucial in helping us with surveys, feedback on new features etc. So, a big thank you from Trip to you.

2023 has proved immense, 2024 will hopefully be even bigger.