The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), most notably generative AI, has revolutionized various industries. Health care is no exception, and AI holds immense potential to improve efficiencies and outcomes. However, we have already seen organizations and governmental agencies indicate the need to address ethical issues such technology can create.
Responsible application of AI is crucial, especially when the health and well-being of people are at stake. To manage this responsibility, health care leaders need to unite with experts from various backgrounds to assess the current state of AI, its capabilities and limitations, and its path forward. These considerations must account for all stakeholders—patients, clinicians, health care organizations and technology developers. Viewing AI holistically will enable the health care industry to take maximum advantage of its potential while protecting public safety.
Importance of AI in health care
AI has the potential to help bridge the growing gap in the health care industry between the contracting capacity to provide care and the increasing demand for care by a growing and aging patient population.
The latest technological advancements can save clinicians up to three hours each workday by relieving them of essential administrative tasks. Among other benefits, such as enabling clinicians and patients to establish a more human connection, that time savings can be repurposed into increasing patient access, something the industry desperately needs. However, the task of accurately documenting the patient encounter is a solemn responsibility that the industry must continue to undertake with the utmost care. While AI plays a significant role in automating documentation, we cannot blindly rely upon it to generate the accuracy demanded by our industry because it is far from perfect.
Accordingly, it is essential to maintain some degree of human involvement to ensure the required level of accuracy, which is ultimately reflected in the quality of care patients receive. AI can be a useful productivity tool, but it cannot replace the human element entirely.
As CEO of an ambient medical documentation company, emphasizing the importance of the responsible use of AI across our organization is vital. And we are proactive about it. Rather than wait for regulations to catch up with technological advancements, leaders must take the initiative and collaborate to ensure concerns are being addressed. It is our responsibility as health care leaders to establish and uphold a standard of transparency, safety, privacy, and trust.
Critical considerations for AI adoption in health care
Large language models (LLMs), a class of natural language processing (NLP) algorithms, have seen widespread use in health care for some time and are becoming more prevalent in conversations. New LLMs, such as GPT4, are powerful tools, but are de facto black boxes that rightfully do not instill confidence among many in the industry.
LLMs come with certain challenges that need to be addressed to ensure their responsible adoption. Learnings from some of these challenges will help us solve issues in the future.
