UW-Health, Epic Systems reveal AI in health care guidelines | Health

MADISON (WKOW) – On Monday, two Madison area healthcare players released a new report that proposes a series of guidelines meant to steer the rollout out of artificial intelligence tools in the healthcare space.

UW Health in Madison and Verona-based Epic Systems led a roundtable discussion in early June on which the report was based.

The discussion included healthcare provider executives, staff from congressional offices, and academics. Four hours of brainstorming in Washington D.C. led to Monday’s release of a nine-page document titled “Final Report of the Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare.”

The document is intended to serve as a guidepost for legislative leaders drafting regulations for AI. Led by healthcare systems and private companies, the report centers its approach on protecting the ways in which the technology is already being used in the industry.

Its recommendations include ensuring that AI tools be accessible to healthcare providers in rural areas as well as urban, clearly communicating to patients and workers how the technology is being used to establish trust, and that quality care be prioritized.

UW Health uses AI in at least two ways, according to its senior director for digital health and emerging technologies, Frank Liao: responding to patient messages and in notetaking.

AI drafts replies to some patient messages sent through MyChart, the electronic healthcare records app developed by Epic Systems. The responses are reviewed by a human before being sent to patients.

“Generative AI has that ability to hallucinate, which means that we have to be really thoughtful about how we deploy it,” Liao said. “If we use AI to help draft a message right now, that message can never go straight to the patient. The provider has to review that message before he or she then edits it, or completely throws away the message and starts over.”

Doctors also use speech recognition software to free doctors and nurses from remaining at the keyboard during much of a patient’s visit.

“They’re (patients) noticing that their provider is able to get away from typing on the keyboard, is able to engage with them more directly, a lot more eye contact, a lot less distractions.,” Liao said.

He played down the technology’s ability to replace people, emphasizing that the tools require human guidance.

The report repeatedly underscores the potential AI offers healthcare systems to make up for staffing shortages.

“Participants agreed that successful AI use cases must focus on alleviating existing stressors in the healthcare workforce,” the report said. “Healthcare staff should understand that their employers’ goal is to use AI to support them, not replace them.”

Missing from the roundtable were any representatives of workers who the technology would directly impact the most. 

27 News reached out to a spokesperson for SEIU Wisconsin, a union representing healthcare and many hospitals in the state. A request for comment on the report and its conclusions was not returned.

27 News also contacted Epic Systems for an interview on the report and the company’s plans for AI. The company did not respond.

Liao said patients should expect AI to work mostly in the background, unnoticed by the end used.

27 News asked him if the technology would result in cost savings, and if any potential price reductions to care would be passed to patients.

“We don’t want it to become something where they’re just adding AI features and we have to pay extra for them,” Liao said. “We’re really working closely to make sure whatever they add adds value to patient care, because that’s the only way that the cost equation is going to work out.”