A new white paper aimed at ensuring artificial intelligence (AI) tools are integrated into healthcare delivery in a way that is usable, useful, and safe for both patients and the clinicians using them, has been welcomed by Dental Protection.
The white paper Avoiding the AI ‘Off-Switch’: Make AI Work for Clinicians, to Deliver for Patients is a collaboration between the MPS Foundation, the Centre for Assuring Autonomy at the University of York, and the Improvement Academy hosted at the Bradford Institute for Health Research. The MPS Foundation, along with Dental Protection, is part of the wider Medical Protection Society.
The white paper builds on results from the Shared CAIRE (Shared Care AI Role Evaluation) research project, which ran in partnership with the Centre for Assuring Autonomy.
The research examined the impact of AI decision-support tools on clinicians—ranging from tools which simply provide information, through to those which make direct recommendations to clinicians, and conversational AI tools which can understand, process speech and respond to patient queries in real-time.
The authors concluded that to unlock the potential benefits of AI technologies to patients, more needs to be done to generate confidence in AI among the clinicians using them. The white paper sets out several key recommendations intended to guide a range of clinicians, including dental professionals, on AI use.
The white paper also says healthcare organisations, including dental practices, should ensure any AI recommender systems procured have product liability which covers loss to a patient from an incorrect or harmful AI recommendation, or their contract with the AI company includes an indemnity or loss-sharing mechanism in cases where a patient alleges harm by an AI recommendation implemented by a clinician, and the clinician is subsequently held liable.
“This white paper makes an excellent and timely contribution to the discussion around the potential of AI and how it can be responsibly integrated into all aspects of healthcare delivery,” Dental Protection dental director Raj Rattan said.
