Healthcare AI won't take jobs – it'll make nursing easier, says process automation founder
- Reference: 1712767507
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/04/10/healthcare_ai_interview/
- Source link:
[1]Youtube Video
Describing AI as "a positive revolution" in the healthcare field, Parsons told us the healthcare industry is in dire need of a way out of its current predicament - namely: not enough workers, and too many patients.
[2]
"What we're finding is a material degradation in the patient experience, and a lot of that is driven by this underlying staffing issue," Parsons told The Reg . "Anything that can drive and add more capacity into our healthcare system, I think ultimately is gonna result in a better patient experience."
[3]
Of course, adding AI to healthcare isn't without its problems, as [4]we've seen before, which is why Parsons believes we should start with the lowest risk areas – like patient-facing chats or post-visit surveys, as Nvidia and Hippocratic AI have [5]partnered to develop.
But when there's talk of AI there's also talk of [6]cut jobs and more profit for hospitals - Hippocratic's nursing AIs only cost around $9 an hour to run, for example. Despite the obvious economic advantage for hospitals, Parsons doesn't think nurses will be on the chopping block.
[7]
"If anything, I think it'll improve the nurse experience," Parsons told us. He predicts a productivity boost, and an increase in wages for nurses over the next decade of nursing AI evolution.
That's been a [8]common refrain as AI's reach has grown - one that's been answered by some of tech's top leaders with confirmation that, regardless of rhetoric, AI is [9]still coming for your job .
Whether things will be different in healthcare remains to be seen, which we talk about in more detail in the interview you can watch above. ®
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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt8ebhM4eFk
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZhcL@l-iCBXwrmjWvGWYUwAAAMI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZhcL@l-iCBXwrmjWvGWYUwAAAMI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/09/ai_medicare_health/
[5] https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/3/18/2848236/0/en/Hippocratic-AI-Announces-Collaboration-with-NVIDIA-to-Develop-Super-Low-Latency-Empathy-Inference-for-One-of-the-World-s-First-Generative-AI-Powered-Healthcare-Agents.html
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/06/ai_will_reduce_workforce_41/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZhcL@l-iCBXwrmjWvGWYUwAAAMI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/ai_wont_take_our_jobs/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/04/ai_replacement_jobs/
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Can != will
> Anything that can drive and add more capacity into our healthcare system, I think ultimately is gonna result in a better patient experience."
The big but here is that this is the NHS we are talking about. An organisation of 1.4 million individuals that has never successfully implemented any major IT project
AI Nurse: I recommend you to snort some cinnamon then dunk your testicles in soy sauce.
Patient: what? wait where were you trained in medicine?
AI Nurse:TikTok. Now please sign these waivers and swipe your medical insurance card.
My wife is a nurse and she says that the biggest problem (of the many that exist) with the overstaffing situation is that patients don't get the time and reassurance that they need when they're generally in the most stressful times of their lives. Many places have turned into conveyor belts and the soft side of nursing (which is very large part of their valuable work) is the first thing to go. Having stressed patients has a big impact on their health outcomes
I was lucky enough to get a hernia operation recently (my first time having any kind of serious hospital treatment) that was made very tolerable by the time and patience of the nursing staff. The fact that I was calm and reasonable helped them out substantially as well I am sure.
*If* AI could help with this side of things (and that is a *huge* but), then I'm all for it, but people need contact with other people. We need each other.
"I am programmed to comfort you. Please assume the position."
Translation
"He predicts a productivity boost, and an increase in wages for nurses over the next decade of nursing AI evolution."
He predicts lots of money coming into his bank account from the sale of unreliable and dangerous ML systems to replace nurses.
If AI could help
Then outsourcing could have been helping for the last couple decades. The AI is obviously not going to be replacing saline bags and drawing blood, its role would have to be talking only like responding to a call button to find out what the patient needs, taking lunch orders, doing regular check-ins to see if there are any changes in the patient's reported level of pain, and so forth.
That could have been done by nurses in India getting paid a fraction of what they do here for some time now. Maybe HIPAA is the reason, but I suspect the healthcare industry could have lobbied for an exception if they thought this was a worthwhile plan.
If someone an Indian call center isn't do the job today, I don't see a viable way for AI to be doing it tomorrow. That's true whether it is health care or any other business. If a disembodied computer voice is expected to do it tomorrow, a person in India or Costa Rica should be able to do it today and for a while now.
However, having access to AI may give managers added incentive to create even more complicated and byzantine processes so that we end up in the same place (while heating millions of homes with the abundant waste heat from datacenters).