Californian nurses are calling for greater transparency with the use of artificial intelligence in the healthcare industry, stating that the technology is a risk to patients.
An estimated 200 nurses from the California Nurse Association protested outside Kaiser Permanente’s San Francisco Medical Centre, with red signs that read “Patients are not algorithms” and “Trust nurses, not AI.”
The protestors claim that healthcare corporations need to ensure that the technology is tested, valid and not harmful to patients before deploying it, and called for developers to allow nurses to review any software.
They added concern that without proper oversight, healthcare employers will use AI to replace their jobs as nurses and other medical professionals for profit and have asked for a pause on the rollout of new AI technologies.
“Our physicians and care teams are always at the centre of decision-making with our patients,” a Kaiser Permanente statement said in response to a request from the publication KQED. “As an organisation dedicated to inclusiveness and health equity, we ensure that results from AI tools are correct and unbiased; AI does not replace human assessment.”
According to the firm, one AI tool called ‘Advance Alert Monitor’ that alerts nurses if a patient’s health is at risk of serious decline has saved about 500 lives per year.
However, Michelle Guiterrez Vo, a president at CNA, claims that there are problems with the tool such as inaccurate alarms and says it has failed to detect all patients whose health is quickly deteriorating.
“These healthcare corporations are using this as a shortcut, to handle patient load. And we’re saying, ‘No. You cannot do that without making sure these systems are safe,” said Guiterrez Vo. Adding: “Our patients are not lab rats.”
Last year, President Joe Biden issued an executive order on the safe use of AI, that included a directive to develop policies for AI-enabled technologies in health services. The Food and Drug Administration, has authorised new AI products before they go to market, although it is argued that it is done without the comprehensive data required.
