AI’s impact on nursing and health care
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly expanding in all workplaces, and hospitals are no exception. Without our collective action, AI’s expansion will accelerate the hospital industry’s race to the bottom and drastically limit nurses’ ability to provide quality care.
There are many types of AI. Simply put: AI is technology that attempts to mimic human intelligence, often based on software algorithms, which are rules for calculating or processing massive amounts of data. In the health care context, AI and algorithms are often produced based on patients’ Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and other sources of data collected from patients and their environment.
Nurses are not against scientific or technological advancement, but we will not accept algorithms replacing the expertise, experience, holistic, and hands-on approach we bring to patient care.
Nurses know that AI technology and algorithms are owned by corporations that are driven by profit — not a desire to improve patient care conditions or advance the nursing profession. The hospital industry, in cooperation with Silicon Valley and Wall Street, will use AI to further its dangerous effort to displace RNs from the physical care of their patients prioritizing low-cost or free labor over patient needs.
