TECHNOLOGY
Generative AI in health care — how to support responsible deployment Sharon Hakkennes*, VP analyst at Gartner
T
he level of interest and adoption of generative AI within the Australian healthcare sector is increasing at a rapid rate. This is a trend largely driven by the transformative capabilities of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT in areas like patient engagement, medical research, clinician experience and workflow optimisation. In general, applications of AI in health care have a critical impact on patient care and clinical outcomes and, as a result, must meet high standards for safety, efficacy, equity and usability. From a generative AI perspective, the most significant limitations and risks centre around privacy, bias, accuracy, explainability and recency. However, regulation isn’t keeping pace, so it’s critical for healthcare organisations in Australia to put guardrails in place to ensure generative AI is used in a responsible manner. Responsible AI makes AI a positive force, rather than a threat to society and to itself. It covers many aspects of making the right business and ethical choices when adopting AI that organisations often address independently, such as business and societal value, risk, trust, transparency and accountability.
The value potential
Currently, the potential of generative AI spans patient care, research, clinical education and workflow optimisation. For example, it could be used to improve clinician efficiency with administrative tasks such as assisting with generation of clinical notes and letters, responding to patient queries and producing patient information and educational material. Generative AI could also be used to enable clinicians to more easily find patient information to offer specific summaries of their health information. 24
HOSPITAL + HEALTHCARE
SPRING 2023
hospitalhealth.com.au