Jesse Ehrenfeld reflects on the use of AI in patient care

Jesse Ehrenfeld, President of American Medical Association, recently shared on LinkedIn:

“In today’s The New York Times: Doctors Wrestle With A.I. in Patient Care, Citing Lax Oversight

The FDA has approved many new programs that use artificial intelligence, but doctors are skeptical that the tools really improve care or are backed by solid research.

‘We’re going to have a lot of choices. It’s exciting,’ Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld, president of the American Medical Association, a leading doctors’ lobbying group, said in an interview. ‘But if physicians are going to incorporate these things into their workflow if they’re going to pay for them and if they’re going to use them — we’re going to have to have some confidence that these tools work.’

Getting A.I. oversight right in medicine, a task that involves several agencies, is critical, said Dr. Ehrenfeld, the A.M.A. president. He said doctors have scrutinized the role of A.I. in deadly plane crashes to warn about the perils of automated safety systems overriding a pilot’s — or a doctor’s — judgment.

He said the 737 Max plane crash inquiries had shown how pilots weren’t trained to override a safety system that contributed to the deadly collisions. He is concerned that doctors might encounter a similar use of A.I. running in the background of patient care that could prove harmful.

‘Just understanding that the A.I. is there should be an obvious place to start,’ Dr. Ehrenfeld said. ‘But it’s not clear that that will always happen if we don’t have the right regulatory framework.'”

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Source: Jesse Ehrenfeld/LinkedIn