A new white paper with recommendations for the safe use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare has been published.

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 White Paper builds on results from the Shared CAIRE (Shared Care AI Role Evaluation) research project. The research examined the impact of AI decision-support tools on clinicians. The tools ranged from those 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.

Future use of AI

The White Paper sets out several key recommendations intended to guide a range of clinicians, including dental professionals, on AI use. These include:

  • Clinicians should regard the output from AI as another clinical perspective which informs the diagnostic and treatment planning process
  • Clinicians should seek training on any AI systems they intend to use in the practice. This training should include AI capabilities, constraints, decision thresholds, and an understanding of the underlying algorithms
  • Clinicians should feel confident to discuss the use of AI and decision support systems with a patient, as part of a wider conversation around diagnosis, treatment options
  • Clinicians should engage with healthcare AI developers, when asked and where possible, to ensure that AI is user centric

The White Paper also stated that healthcare organisations, including dental practices, should ensure any AI recommender systems procured have product liability. This should cover loss to a patient from an incorrect or harmful AI recommendation, or their contract with the AI company should include 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.

Raj Rattan, dental director at Dental Protection, said, “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.

“The transformative potential of AI in all walks of life cannot be overstated, and dentistry is no exception. The dental profession needs to be supported in embracing AI, from diagnostics, record keeping and predictive analytics, to patient and practice management systems. It is important that users have a good understanding of the workings, as transparency is the key when it comes to building trust in AI and boosting user confidence.

“This could lead to a range of benefits for patients, lessen the administrative burden, streamline clinical workflows and increase efficiency.

“It is a fast-evolving field and at Dental Protection we aim to remain at the heart of it – to help ensure members and their patients reap these benefits, and to provide advice and support which helps members understand and mitigate any emergent dentolegal risks in relation to the use of AI - for example, patient consent.

“In addition, and as the White Paper rightly sets out – to unlock real benefits for patients, AI tools must work for those actually using them, and at Dental Protection we will do everything we can to ensure that message is heard by the government, AI developers and regulators.”

For more information visit www.thempsfoundation.org/docs/foundationlibraries/foundation-default-library/white-papers/ai-white-paper_the-mps-foundation.pdf

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