The Doctor Is Operational: AI In Health Care And The New Liability Landscape

Artificial intelligence (AI) has captured the world’s headlines, perhaps in health care more than any other field. From surgical robots to diagnostic machines that can more quickly and accurately detect disease process (such as diabetic retinopathy by studying images of the eye), AI has the potential to transform health care delivery and improve patient outcomes. While AI is designed to curb human error through automated systems, machine learning, and neural networks, it introduces a new set of risks into the health care liability landscape. To the extent a health care provider utilizes AI to treat a patient who has a less-than-desired outcome, we anticipate liability suits against both the health care provider and AI software companies. The term “artificial intelligence” is not universally defined. When people talk about AI, they usually mean “machine learning,” a subset of AI that uses algorithms to detect patterns in data.