Does Your Health System Need a Clinical A.I. Department?

Could the deployment of artificial intelligence lead to the same type of widespread dissatisfaction among clinicians that has happened with electronic health records? A group of clinicians writing in BMJ Health & Care Informatics argues that unless the efforts are systematic and involve relevant stakeholders, a repeat of the same experience is likely.

The authors included clinical leaders from the University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, University of California San Francisco, Harvard-MIT, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

After describing some of the literature about the disappointments with EHRs, they pointed to some precedents in radiology and laboratory medicine that they say offer lessons for how to steward a new tool into the realm of safe and effective clinical use. “Such accomplishments were due, in large part, to the gathering of relevant stakeholders under a single department. This approach ensured that the necessary clinical participants took the reins rather than ceding them to third-party developers. Thus, to secure AI’s place in the annals of successful medical technologies, we propose the establishment of the first departments of clinical AI.”