Patients fearful of artificial intelligence, may require radiologist hand-holding
Much has been written about radiologists’ views on artificial intelligence, but less so when it comes to how patients view this burgeoning technology’s role in the specialty.
Hoping to fill this knowledge gap, imaging experts with the University of Saskatchewan recently held a patient engagement workshop dedicated to AI. They found that some consumers still harbor fears about the unknown in AI, and they’re worried about losing human connection in care, experts wrote Feb. 14 in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
Imaging physicians may need to spend more time quelling patients' fears before diving right into AI in clinical use.
“Despite enthusiasm among the radiology community for AI to improve patient care, misconceptions about AI may lead to a lack of trust among some patients,” wrote Scott Adams, MD, with the university’s Department of Medical Imaging, and colleagues. “Patient education regarding AI in radiology may be warranted,” they added.
To get to the bottom of this issue, the school and its Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, invited various patients, advisors and advocacy groups to its workshop. All told, 17 individuals took part in the discussion, overseen by an improvement consultant. Patients were quizzed on their AI priorities, concerns, fears, etc.
Four common themes bubbled to the surface—fear of the unknown in AI, confusion about where to place trust in this process, concerns about loss of human connection in care and cultural acceptability.
“Some participants expressed concern that AI is at odds with cultural ways of knowing and healing,” Adams noted on the last item. “This suggests that collaborating and partnering with community and cultural leaders may be helpful to determine ways AI can be used in a manner consistent with patients’ cultures.”
Participants also shared their priorities on how they want to see artificial intelligence deployed in imaging. And those seem to align with the direction the field is headed—including improving access to care while eliminating long waits, dropping the time it takes to receive an opinion, increasing diagnostic accuracy, improving communication with radiologists and empowering patients.
It’s clear from the discussions that consumers want to play an active role in AI’s rollout in radiology, and they are not reluctant to share their information, Adams and colleagues concluded.
“Participants were willing, and many eager, for their data to be shared to assist in the development of AI tools in healthcare,” the team wrote. “Participants expressed a desire for patients and the patient community to have a role in developing AI algorithms and collaborating on implementation,” the authors added later.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.