Are you and your doctor ready for AI? While patients may be getting more comfortable with AI, how healthcare professionals embrace AI is critical to its evolution and eventual use.

Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School conducted a poll in May among 3,317 adults age 18 and over in the U.S. and included a sample of 357 healthcare workers who were asked about how AI is already affecting their jobs, and how it might continue to do so in the future.

So how comfortable are healthcare professionals with AI? According to the study, “Healthcare professionals are somewhat divided in their opinions of AI: 23% think the use of AI in healthcare will help more than it hurts, 33% think it will hurt more than it helps, and 42% think it will equally help and hurt.”

Another interesting but not surprising poll result is the age differentiation. According to the study, “Younger adults express more comfort with AI-led healthcare, with 40% of those 18-34 saying they would be comfortable with a primary care appointment led by AI, vs. just 24% among those 65 and older.”

A Becker’s story, published June 29 by Giles Bruce, “Where Americans want and don’t want AI in healthcare: 7 things to know”, provides the following highlights from the study:

1. 1. Two-thirds of Americans believe AI will play a bigger role in healthcare five years from now.
   2. 34 percent expect AI to be better than healthcare providers at treating patients without bias.
   3. 1 in 4 are comfortable with AI-led therapy.
   4. 22 percent expect AI to be better than medical professionals at diagnosing conditions.
   5. 12 percent said their healthcare providers currently use AI to augment treatment, diagnosis or communication.
   6. 83 percent of medical professionals don’t currently use AI.
   7. A third of healthcare providers say AI will do more harm than good.

AI is already being used in many ways in healthcare and will continue to evolve. IT leaders need to stay current as it evolves, leverage their existing vendor partners, carefully assess the new niche players and their claims, develop AI skills within their teams, partner with clinical and operational leaders to find ways to experiment that make the most sense for their organization, and learn from other organizations who are more advanced users of AI.

Bill Russell’s This Week Health podcasts often cover AI so it’s a great resource for keeping up and hearing what the issues are and how it is being used in different organizations. One of the newest episodes is TownHall: The Potential and Unknowns of AI and Emerging Tech in Healthcare, Part 1, a conversation between Dr. Brett Oliver, Family Physician and Chief Medical Information Officer at Baptist Health and John League, Managing Director, Digital Health Research at Advisory Board.

As my favorite television news anchor likes to say, “watch this space”.

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