Artificial Intelligence Revolution in Healthcare: Enhancing Clinical Practice with a New Member of the Team

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a relatively new medical resource with the potential to revolutionize current practices in the prevention and treatment of disease. AI has been defined as computer programs accomplishing tasks traditionally associated with human intelligence such as learning and solving problems. As the ethical benefits of increased efficiency and productivity of AI systems are being realized, the consequences of implementing such transformative technologies has raised ethical and regulatory questions across the globe. AI represents a tool to address longstanding issues in healthcare delivery and can achieve a caliber of healthcare quality that was previously beyond our grasp. However, AI systems may incorporate and often amplify existing patterns of practice, including societal biases and inequitable healthcare practices. Surmounting these ethical and regulatory challenges represents the next frontier in the successful implementation of AI to promote human development and wellbeing. In this study, we examined the current literature and analyzed the scope of practice around the ethical and regulatory issues surrounding AI in medicine and its application to healthcare. Knowledge integration was performed across disciplines relevant to the potential role for AI in facilitating progress, innovation, and quality assurance in healthcare. Thematic analysis was conducted on qualitative data pertaining to both ethical and regulatory challenges concerning the implementation of AI into healthcare practices. The project provided exposure to the innovative field of AI and various strategies related to ethical issues, regulatory laws, quality improvement, and healthcare management. We explored both the reliability and current limitations of AI in order to create best practices guidelines designed to facilitate the successful incorporation of AI into healthcare fields. Ethical challenges of AI such as risk management, data security, and a lack of transparency span all sectors working to implement these new technologies. All medical disciplines working to leverage the potential applications of AI struggle with the ethical challenges of informed consent, autonomy, accountability, biases, and equitable healthcare delivery. The field of laboratory medicine and pathology was a pioneer in the implementation of AI technology. Laboratory medicine and pathology face additional hurdles when ensuring accurate interpretation of results such as unequal contexts, opportunity costs, and low levels of acceptable risk and uncertainty. Rather than an all-or-nothing approach, we suggest a stepwise, transparent, and patient-centered approach with clear boundaries to the incorporation of new tools. The AI-assisted era of medical care will be transformative but will never be void of all risk or ethical challenges. This work represents the first of many steps in using AI technology to optimize healthcare delivery in a way that protects and strengthens the ethical values of medical care.