AMA has adopted policies to further integrate artificial intelligence into medical practice and training.
The American Medical Association has endorsed and adopted several new policies to support the integration of artificial intelligence in medical practice and training.
At the association’s annual meeting, delegates discussed policy recommendations focused on AI’s role in enhancing patient care, boosting population health, and reducing care costs, while improving physician satisfaction.
“Medical experts are working to determine the clinical applications of AI—work that will guide healthcare in the future. These experts, along with physicians, state and federal officials must find the path that ends with better outcomes for patients,” said Gerald E. Harmon, MD, former chair of the AMA Board of Trustees. “We have to make sure the technology does not get ahead of our humanity and creativity as physicians.”
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Delegates at the meeting said AMA will advocate for the oversight and regulation of healthcare AI systems based on the risk of harm or benefit. The association will also support payment and coverage of AI systems that comply with all state and federal laws and regulations. Activities could include governing patient safety, efficacy, equity, privacy, and security.
Additionally, AMA said it will support payment and coverage of AI systems that are informed by real-world workflow and human-centered design principles, as well as policies that increase affordability and access to AI systems designed for small practices.
The organization noted that it will oppose mandates by payers, hospitals, health systems, or governmental entities that require the use of AI as a condition of licensure, participation, payment, or coverage. Any mandates requiring the use of healthcare AI should hold developers responsible for potential liabilities.
“When a mandate exists to use AI, the individual or entity issuing the mandate must be assigned all applicable liability,” AMA said.
“Developers of autonomous AI systems with clinical applications (screening, diagnosis, treatment) are in the best position to manage issues of liability arising directly from system failure or misdiagnosis and must accept this liability.”
In addition to discussing policies that will support AI in clinical practice, AMA adopted new policies aimed at incorporating AI into medical education and training. The new policies identify the steps needed to educate physicians-in-training and physicians on how AI technology works and to evaluate its applicability, appropriateness, and effectiveness in caring for patients.
The policies include encouraging the development of AI education modules, addressing disparities in AI education that could impact patient care, and ensuring physicians are involved in the development and implementation of educational materials on AI.
To support these new policies, AMA will encourage accrediting and licensing bodies to study how to address AI based on accrediting and licensing standards. AMA also said that medical specialty societies and boards should consider the production of specialty-specific educational modules related to AI.
The association will encourage research around the effectiveness of AI instruction in medical education as well and is calling for stakeholders to provide educational materials to help learners guard against inadvertent bias in AI systems. Moreover, AMA is urging researchers to investigate how disparities in education will impact AI in healthcare.
“AMA is encouraging the study of how differences in institutional access to AI may impact disparities in education for students at schools with fewer resources and less access to AI technologies,” the organization said.
“We also encourage the study of how disparities in AI educational resources may impact healthcare disparities for patients in communities with fewer resources and less access to AI technologies.”
AMA is also recommending that physicians collaborate and work closely with developers to create AI applications that fit with their workflows and needs. Institutional leaders and academic deans should also proactively include non-clinicians, including data scientists and engineers, onto their faculty roster to assist students with their use of AI, AMA suggested.
These new policies and recommendations will add to AMA’s efforts to transform medical education and ensure physicians can practice in a constantly changing healthcare landscape. In 2013, the organization launched the Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative, which strives to incorporate the latest technologies, reforms, and discoveries that alter the industry.
With these policies, AMA will help to further integrate AI in physician practice and training.
“To realize the benefits for patient care, physicians must have the skills to work comfortably with augmented intelligence in healthcare,” said AMA Board Member S. Bobby Mukkamala, MD.
“Just as working effectively with electronic health records is now part of training for medical students and residents, educating physicians to work effectively with AI systems, or more narrowly, the AI algorithms that can inform clinical care decisions, will be critical to the future of AI in healthcare.”
Date: June 19, 2019
Source: Health IT Analytics