A look at changes in physician sentiment on artificial intelligence in healthcare from August 2023 to November 2024 offered deep insight into evolving physician perspectives on its adoption.
However, many doctors who participated in the latest American Medical Association Augmented Intelligence Research survey had concerns about flawed AI.
WHY IT MATTERS
AI use cases nearly doubled since AMA conducted a comprehensive study of physicians’ sentiments about the use of AI in August 2023, the organization said Wednesday in its new survey report.
Repeating the study in November to determine the degree of change across medicine, the organization found that a majority of participating physicians – 68% – indicated they see definite or some advantage to using AI tools, up from 65% the previous year.
However, more than three in five – 66% – indicated they currently use AI in their practices. Doctors’ use of AI is up significantly from 38% in 2023, despite their lingering concerns.
That means many physicians are at a crossroads, according to AMA.
In the latest survey, physician respondents emphasized the need for a designated feedback channel (88%), data privacy assurances (87%) and EHR integration (84%) as critical factors for AI adoption.
Nearly half of the physicians – 47% – ranked increased oversight as the No. 1 regulatory action needed to increase their trust in healthcare AI tools. Doctors also reported in AMA’s AI usage survey that data privacy assurances (87%), not being held liable for AI model errors (87%) and medical liability coverage (86%) were top attributes for their buy-in.
THE LARGER TREND
AMA has long promoted AI as an enabler of, not a replacement for, doctors. With physician burnout reaching an all-time high by the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ability to reduce administrative growth with AI meant the technology was poised for growth.
Skeptical about how much they should trust machine learning models deployed in clinical settings, doctors and scientists push back on certain AI-driven studies that fail to share enough details about their codes and how they were tested.
Developing trust in healthcare AI is regarded as a scrupulous endeavor, though evaluating bias has been variable across the sector.
“Greater focus on evidence-based AI development or deployment requires effective collaboration between the public and private sectors, which will lead to greater accountability for AI developers, implementers, healthcare organizations and others to consistently rely on evidence-based AI development or deployment practices,” Dr. Jody Ranck, senior analyst at Chilmark Research, previously told Healthcare IT News.
ON THE RECORD
“There remain unresolved physician concerns with the design of health AI and the potential of flawed AI-enabled tools to put privacy at risk, integrate poorly with EHR systems, offer incorrect conclusions or recommendations and introduce new liability concerns,” Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, AMA immediate past president, said in a statement. “Increased oversight ranked as the top regulatory action needed to increase physician confidence and adoption of AI.”
Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.
