Healthcare is one of the most promising sectors for artificial intelligence (AI). AI can help doctors and other healthcare professionals to diagnose diseases, predict patient outcomes, and provide personalized treatment plans. However, AI also poses some risks, such as the potential for biased decision-making. In this article, we’ll explore five best practices for using AI in healthcare. We’ll discuss how to ensure that AI systems are safe and effective, and how to avoid bias in decision-making.
Understand the Risks of AI in Healthcare
Artificial intelligence can automate many tasks in healthcare. It can also help to improve the effectiveness of medical workflows. However, AI also poses some unique risks. Healthcare providers must be aware of these risks so that they can implement appropriate safeguards to reduce potential harm. From a risk management perspective, AI poses three unique risks that must be considered before implementation. Here we’ll outline each of these risks and discuss how AI providers can prevent them.
– First, AI systems may produce unexpected outcomes when automated decision-making processes generate incorrect results. Inaccurate decision-making could have serious consequences, such as exposing patients to harmful treatments.
AI systems could also generate false positive outcomes, which could cause an increase in patient testing or overdiagnosis. Overdiagnosis occurs when AI identifies a condition that doesn’t exist. False negatives pose a much lower risk to patients, but they can hurt healthcare providers by wasting time, resources, and energy.
– Second, AI systems may be biased. Researchers have identified various ways in which AI systems can perpetuate existing biases. For example, AI models may be trained on biased data. Data sets and training methods can also contribute to bias. For example, if a healthcare provider is the only person who uses an AI system, there may be a built-in preference for their own data set.
– Third, AI systems can lead to privacy breaches. Many healthcare systems are integrated with other computer systems. This means that AI systems can be accessed by other parties, including insurers, researchers, and other medical professionals. This can lead to data breaches, which can expose patients’ medical information.
Some AI systems can even collect sensitive data from patients without their knowledge. Healthcare providers can help to prevent these privacy risks by only allowing those who need access to patient data to use AI systems.
Establish Guidelines for AI Use in Healthcare
Healthcare providers can use AI to support their workflows and improve the quality of patient care. However, they must also follow specific guidelines to prevent issues with bias and privacy. AI should be used to augment, not replace, the work of clinicians.
For example, AI could help to understand medical records, detect potential abnormalities in patient images, or identify potential drug interactions. Healthcare providers must determine the appropriate level of automation for each process. This can help to identify where automation may be risky, such as automated diagnostic decision-making.
Healthcare providers can also use AI to inform decisions. For example, certain types of patient information can be used to predict their health outcomes. This information can then be used to improve patient outcomes, such as by providing more personalized treatment plans.
AI can also be used to support patient communication. For example, patients and their family members can receive automated notifications about doctor visits or treatments. However, healthcare providers must also consider how these notifications can be misinterpreted by family members or others.
Train Healthcare Professionals on the Use of AI
Healthcare providers can use AI to automate certain parts of their workflows. This can help to reduce errors and increase the efficiency of care. However, efficacy may not be as high as it would be if the providers were performing the tasks manually. Healthcare providers should always thoroughly assess the automation potential and manually perform the same tasks to avoid automation misuse.
Healthcare professionals can also use AI to transform data. For example, AI can help to identify valuable information in medical records, such as previously unidentified attributes in images or text. This can then be used to create richer visualization tools, such as more effective health dashboards. Healthcare providers can also use AI to train AI systems. This can help to improve the accuracy of future AI models. However, it is important to follow standardization and governance processes when doing so.
Monitor and Evaluate the Results of AI Use in Healthcare
AI is a new technology. As such, it’s important to evaluate the results and outcomes of its use. It’s also important to understand how AI works so that its results can be understood and evaluated. To do this, healthcare providers can use healthcare analytics.
Healthcare analytics is the use of computer algorithms to collect and analyze data. This can help to improve the effectiveness of AI implementation. Healthcare analytics can also help to evaluate the efficacy of AI implementations. Healthcare analytics can be used to detect potential issues with AI.
These issues could include missing data, wrong data, or incorrect decisions. Healthcare analytics can also be used to evaluate the results of AI applications. Healthcare analytics can be used to identify where AI may be effective.
Take Action if There are Safety Concerns
Artificial intelligence poses several unique risks to patients. Healthcare providers should be proactive in assessing the risks of AI and implementing appropriate safeguards. Healthcare providers should also consider the following if they notice safety concerns while using AI:
– Ensure that the underlying data is accurate, complete, and reliable. – Establish guidelines for how the AI system is being used.
– Train healthcare professionals on the safe use of the AI system.
– Ensure that the system has been tested for accuracy and reliability.
– Ensure that the data is being properly used for training AI models.
