Doctors are some of the biggest AI users. Are they ready for the risks?

Artificial intelligence has had an impact on several sectors, but perhaps none more so than healthcare. Some people may even be shocked to learn that, according to a survey conducted by the American Medical Association, more than 80% of physicians use AI tools daily.

As the quality and reliability of artificial intelligence tools continue to increase, more and more medical professionals are beginning to trust the technology in their workflows. And with a widespread physician shortage adding incredible strain to the medical workforce, anything that can alleviate this pressure can be helpful.

How healthcare providers and patients are using AI

Like professionals in many industries, healthcare providers have adopted artificial intelligence tools to boost the efficiency and accuracy of their workflows. Some of the most common ways in which the healthcare sector has used AI include:

• Summaries of medical research and standards of care: Healthcare providers can use AI for research, allowing them to get summaries of medical research and standards of care. Because artificial intelligence can scan databases quickly, it can identify the information medical professionals need to go quickly and succinctly.
• Generation of documentation: Medical professionals can also use artificial intelligence tools to create documentation, including discharge instructions, care plans, visit notes, billing codes and chart summaries. This capability can significantly reduce the time they spend on tasks that are not directly related to working with patients.
• Generation of draft responses to patient portal messages: Healthcare providers can use AI to help them draft communications with patients. For providers who struggle with skills like bedside manner, this can help them provide better patient service.
• Translation services: The healthcare industry has long faced a shortage of qualified medical interpreters. Artificial intelligence has proven to be an exciting solution to this challenge by helping eliminate barriers to care for patients who do not speak English.
• Assistive diagnosis: Some healthcare providers are also using AI tools to assist in diagnosis. Artificial intelligence models can often analyze records and X-rays more efficiently and precisely than human doctors, offering additional benefits such as earlier detection and diagnosis.

When artificial intelligence is used to automate the more monotonous and mundane tasks in a healthcare professional’s duties, such as those mentioned above, it allows them to focus on what matters most: saving and improving lives. When doctors can spend less time worrying about filling out paperwork, they can see more patients or spend more time with each patient, which is incredibly beneficial in the long run.

However, we are even seeing novel applications of artificial intelligence technology to accomplish more complex tasks. For example, robotics and artificial intelligence are beginning to be used in the operating room to make surgery more efficient and accurate. The goal of these innovations is not to replace practitioners (in this case, surgeons) but to augment their capacity and precision, leading to better patient outcomes and more patients served.

Patients themselves are also beginning to use AI-driven tools for their own care. For example, websites like WebMD now offer AI-driven tools like symptom checkers that let patients investigate their own symptoms before contacting their doctor. Other patients are using AI tools to remotely monitor their health, which is particularly useful when integrated with smart wearable technology that tracks factors such as their vital signs.

Why responsible deployment is necessary for healthcare AI

However, as exciting ‌an innovation as artificial intelligence can be, it is important to embrace a responsible approach to AI integration in healthcare. Responsible AI use ensures ethical and reliable medical decision-making practices, which is incredibly important in a sector where patients’ lives could quite literally be on the line with every decision a healthcare practitioner or an artificial intelligence system makes.

One of the biggest concerns about artificial intelligence in the healthcare industry is bias. Because AI technology is still, at this stage, dependent on the data on which it is trained, the output of models will reflect any bias in the data. For example, if a medical AI is trained on skewed data, the system can start to weigh visual characteristics in ways that were never intended. In tools used for use cases like assistive diagnosis, this level of bias can be concerning.

Many critics have also expressed skepticism about the data privacy of AI systems in the healthcare sector. Data in healthcare is incredibly sensitive, whether it is identifying patient information or private health data. Unfortunately, many commercially available AI tools, like large language models, don’t have stringent enough data privacy protections and regulations to be used in healthcare settings. This lack of proper governance is why many healthcare professionals use bespoke AI solutions to automate their workflow, rather than commercial ones.

By adopting responsible practices in the use of artificial intelligence, healthcare professionals can leverage its benefits to streamline their workflows while mitigating concerns about bias and data privacy. Today, doctors and patients are already among the most common consumers of AI technology, and if these innovations in the healthcare sector continue, that trend will remain steadfast for the foreseeable future.

Chris Hutchins serves as the founder and CEO of Hutchins Data Strategy Consulting. The healthcare institutions benefit from his expertise in developing scalable moral data and artificial intelligence methods to maximize their data potential. His areas of expertise include enterprise data governance, responsible AI adoption, and self-service analytics. His expertise helps organizations achieve substantial results through technology implementation. Through team empowerment, Chris assists healthcare leaders to enhance care delivery while reducing administrative work and transforming data into meaningful outcomes.