A whole bunch of nurses gathered at Kaiser Permanente’s San Francisco Medical Middle this week to protest towards the usage of synthetic intelligence (AI) in healthcare.
The demonstration was organised by the California Nurses Affiliation, who imagine the hospital trade is speeding to implement AI expertise that’s untested and unregulated – and will hurt sufferers.
In response to a video posted by the San Francisco Chronicle to X, nurses brandished indicators studying ‘Belief Nurses Not AI’ and chanted “AI has received to go!”
The affiliation is looking for nurses and all union members to be concerned within the decision-making course of for the deployment of AI in “each step”, with Kaiser Permanente an early adopter of AI and different data-driven applied sciences.
An announcement from Michelle Gutierrez Vo, BSN, RN, registered nurse on the Kaiser Permanente Fremont (Calif.) Medical Middle and president of the California Nurses Affiliation, reads: “It’s deeply troubling to see Kaiser promote itself as a pacesetter in AI in healthcare, once we know their use of those applied sciences comes on the expense of affected person care, all in service of boosting income.
“Nurses are all for tech that enhances our expertise and the affected person care expertise. However what we’re witnessing in our hospitals is the degradation and devaluation of our nursing observe by the usage of these untested applied sciences.”
Cathy Kennedy, RN, a nurse at Kaiser Permanente Roseville (Calif.) Medical Middle and a president of the state nursing affiliation, agreed, stating: “Human experience and medical judgment are the one methods to make sure protected, efficient, and equitable nursing care.
“We all know there may be nothing inevitable about AI’s development into healthcare. No affected person ought to be a guinea pig and no nurse ought to be changed by a robotic.”
In response to the motion, Kaiser Permanente launched the next assertion: “Kaiser Permanente is empowering nurses with state-of-the-art instruments and applied sciences that assist our mission of offering high-quality, reasonably priced well being care to finest meet our members’ and sufferers’ wants.
“We’ve constantly invested in and embraced expertise that permits nurses to work extra successfully, leading to improved affected person outcomes and nurse satisfaction, and we’ll proceed to take action.
“At Kaiser Permanente, AI instruments don’t make medical selections, our physicians and care groups are all the time on the middle of choice making with our sufferers. We imagine that AI could possibly assist our physicians and staff, and improve our members’ expertise. As an organisation devoted to inclusiveness and well being fairness, we make sure the outcomes from AI instruments are appropriate and unbiased; AI doesn’t exchange human evaluation.”
The US took an aggressive stance on the subject of AI security final yr. October 2023 noticed President Biden problem an government order aimed toward defending Individuals from potential dangers of the expertise.
Right here within the UK, following the AI Security Summit in November final yr, the Medicines and Healthcare merchandise Regulatory Company set out new plans in January this yr to guard sufferers whereas enabling entry at once to modern new medical applied sciences, together with AI.
A thought management report from 2022 from DAC Beachcroft revealed that belief in AI amongst each sufferers and healthcare workers will enhance with regulation. Precisely what that regulation will appear like stays to be seen.