This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Hospitals should use AI to reduce paperwork, not reduce nurses. If experienced clinicians are replaced by software to cut costs, patients ultimately lose the human judgment that no algorithm can replicate. AI should support care, not become an excuse to devalue it.
Sounds like the nurses who were laid off were doing a lot of “backend” stuff (talking to insurance, data entry, etc). If the AI was coming in and doing those jobs, freeing up the nurses to work more directly with patients, I could see a good argument for it. But no, they had to let the nurses go, which is just greedy and stupid as fuck given the nursing shortage.
I still wouldn't trust AI to do that stuff. That's how you end up killing and maiming patients.
"You're absolutely correct, that patient was allergic to penicillin."
Sounds more like the nurses were fired in retaliation for participating in a strike led by their union and the hospital is trying to make it seem like they did it because AI made their jobs irrelevant.
From what I read it looked like the nurses mainly worked in patient discharge, which isn't really a job that AI could realistically do. Half the time there isn't really a lot of information that would be accessible, a lot of the info would be entered after discharge when the attending provider is doing their notes.
As the nurses regularly have mentioned, even if they were kept on doing patient stuff, you still don't want AI making healthcare decisions or in charge of healthcare documents.
Yesss… we could hire more nurses with the time and money savings of A.I., but instead let's just fire them and make more money. Doesn't this kind of prove that the nursing shortage is manufactured? They had the option here to help improve the situation but deliberately chose profits every time
Those two things are not mutually exclusive
I don't get your point. There was like 8 things in my comment, which ones were not mutually exclusive?
Well, you asked only one question
Ok, so one question equals two things being mutually exclusive? This has to be the laziest attempt to start an argument I've seen on Lemmy so far
You’ve got to be a troll…. This is completely obvious, but in the rare case you’re really not trolling:
Thing 1:
we could hire more nurses with the time and money savings of A.I.
Thing 2:
instead let's just fire them and make more money.
Question:
Doesn't this kind of prove that the nursing shortage is manufactured?
Answer: (no), those two things are not mutually exclusive.
How tf do you replace nurses with ai? How does a chatbot put in a infusion needle?
A lot of medicine is chart keeping and interacting with insurance companies.
Thinking about AI being used in conjunction with insurance at all makes me physically cringe. If somebody was looking for a tool to remove responsibility for denying claims or applying bias, it's the tool for the job.
I know that's not the side that you're talking about here, but still, I don't think I trust a system that's basically Giant Autocomplete to handle this
Yeah, basically for every hour a doc spends with a patient, they spend 2 hours with the electronic medical record, even with scribes. A whole lot of effort is going to modernizing and automating this, as it will free up a whole lot of doctor and nurse time, which is sorely needed.
Its not those types of nurses. Its utilization review nurses and honestly every nurse in this related field knew this was likely to happen and aren't in disagreement with it. Bedside nurses (which hold greater power than other nursing in unions) have no idea what some other fields of nursing do.
Its actually good use of "AI"
How this position works is that you had nurses manually scanning and scouring different parts of the chart, manually typing down some of those findings, clicking check boxes anyways for medical necessity. Honestly, it was annoying and very administrative in nature. It took 20-25 minutes on average to do a review 10 years ago with most of it just reviewing the chart to put in your notes and check off boxes.
Technology has improved with navigators to more easily find the information so it quickened the time over the years to find the information. But I also knew this position was going to be the first place most places were going to implement AI. Why? Its honestly just pulling information. So whats going to end up happening in this field is that you're going to need less nurses to do the same volume. Its honestly better use of this sort of nurse. Have them manage more cases and audit the information being pulled by whatever AI tech is being used (If it's Interqual Autoreview, this technology dates back to 2018 and is tested). Because thats all they are doing anyways. It's a medical audit. They do help more patients this way but the union won't tell you that and disappointed that the Guardian didn't explain the finer details.
I've been telling people this is going to happen for years and most people in this specific nursing field are not opposed to it because they all use it anyways already (at least in CA). You're either using Milliman or Interqual for the job. There are no other software to use lol
Sorry this is long. Just frustrating article to read.
I don't know a lot of nurses, but those I have heard from suggest that AI in the medical field will lead to worse healthcare outcomes.
In the article they say "Shuler said her job often requires complicated communications, over things like medication changes and discharge planning, that would be hard to conduct with AI."
I don't want AI in charge of medication changes. That doesn't seem like a checkbox kind of thing. I can see how maybe it could be boiled down to a checkbox or flowchart, but it doesn't seem like it's just data entry. Which I still don't know that I want AI solely responsible for.
This is a very different type of nursing.
Its a lot of data pull. Nurses are still there to audit which is their job. The clinical part is knowing the data, ensuring its there and telling the doctors if the patient doesn't meet medical necessity by the insurance companies and what's needed if they want their patient to be covered for services. Its the doctors making the changes not the nurses. Our healthcare system does this via chat BTW.
There's not a lot of communication. I did it for at least two healthcare systems 10 years ago including Kaiser and still work with individuals at my healthcare system in this specific position. They just got more cases since its so much faster and simpler to do their job. And honestly, they're helping more patients.
I know what you mean by it doesn't seem like a checkbox sort of thing but it doesn't change the fact that checkboxes are how they've been doing it for decades.
I just did a simple YouTube search example of checkboxes at 720 min mark and 10 min. That's what its always looked like. You have nurses checking those boxes to send to insurance.
I already see some down votes but I really don't care. Just thought I would provide some education on what this work really entails as I see in the comments that many people are thinking bedside nurses are being replaced which is definitely not the case.
I think the fact it's a checkbox is irrelevant here. From what I understand, these yes/no questions have very real consequences for the patients they're about. If entering the wrong thing can have negative consequences, an AI shouldn't be filling that out. Not to mention, if the data in the medical file is wrong, a nurse who's actually spoken with the patient will actually have opportunities to correct things that an AI will never see.
I appreciate the information.
For what it's worth, I'm not downvoting you. My server doesn't allow downvotes so I can't even see them.
I just want to make sure we're doing better for people, not worse. Based off the quote it seemed like a bad idea, but I can also understand just being mad at AI taking over your job. I hope you're right and that this improves outcomes and decreases admin time. Healthcare is so important and is in a disastrous state in the US. I just want everyone to be well.
How tf do you replace nurses with ai? There's already a nursing SHORTAGE
If you read the article is was nurses that were essentially doing administrative work and not actual patient functions. The stuff that AI absolutely should be replacing. It seems though that at least from the story, the nurses weren't able or weren't needed at that hospital for patient care.
They are 100% remote. Correct. Best use is to keep the nurses and up the case load.
The healthcare systems that are really greedy will outsource the job to a different state or nation. Fortunately I think those are in the minority. None I've heard of in CA
Yeah no fuck that, I don't trust AI with that shit.
Sure, go ahead, find more ways to screw over patients. Never ~~fires into the back of~~ backfires for healthcare industry executives.
Of course, all this will just lead to more malpractice lawsuits, and now only the hospitals are liable.
If a clanker ever appears in my hospital stay in any capacity, I will subverting its directive so it explicitly states that the hospital stay is free of charge
So nice to think you have any control in this
I shall simply choose to die instead, as most red blooded Americans would
Yea.. it’s really sad but true
That’s not what they meant when they said that AIs can be a powerful tool for doctors.
It's exactly what they meant. Replacing people coding things into electronic medical records, automating transcription, and reducing administrative burden is exactly what AI should do. This frees up time for caregivers to actually care and see more patients rather than sitting in front a computer all day.
