Hybrid intelligence in hospitals: towards a research agenda for collaboration

Abstract

Successful collaboration between clinicians is particularly relevant regarding the quality of care process. In this context, the utilization of hybrid intelligence, such as conversational agents (CAs), is a reasonable approach for the coordination of diverse tasks. While there is a great deal of literature involving collaboration, little effort has been made to integrate previous findings and evaluate research when applying CAs in hospitals. By conducting an extended and systematic literature review and semi-structured expert interviews, we identified four major challenges and derived propositions where in-depth research is needed: 1) audience and interdependency; 2) connectivity and embodiment; 3) trust and transparency; and 4) security, privacy, and ethics. The results are helpful for researchers as we discuss directions for future research on CAs for collaboration in a hospital setting enhancing team performance. Practitioners will be able to understand which difficulties must be considered before the actual application of CAs.

Driving Digital Transformation During a Pandemic: Case Study of Virtual Collaboration in a German Hospital

“…Collaboration in hospitals can be defined as a professional alliance between health care specialists from multiple medical disciplines with diverse backgrounds and varying expertise, who jointly provide benefits for patients [12,13]. Although collaboration is considered to be a top priority in hospitals [14], some common issues are frequently experienced by clinicians [15]. Insufficient communication, including improper exchange of medical information, is a prevalent concern [16].…”

“…In addition to existing collaborative challenges in hospitals [15], clinicians are being confronted with issues emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic [23]. Medical workers must not only examine individuals who are infected with the novel virus but must also respond to normal emergencies and patient cases.…”

“…However, the increasing application of technology also serves as a basis for enhancing information exchange and collaboration in hospitals [15,[45][46][47]. Collaborative visioning promotes joint decision-making and helps to overcome related issues frequently experienced by clinicians [48].…”

Artificial intelligence in hospitals: providing a status quo of ethical considerations in academia to guide future research

“…Ethical considerations are not limited to the philosophy discipline (e.g., Ploug and Holm 2020 ), but are also highly relevant in healthcare and social science-related disciplines such as information systems (IS) (e.g., Wang 2020 ). However, current developments in artificial intelligence (AI) give rise to profound novel ethical challenges when applied in healthcare, possibly posing a threat to patients (Jain et al 1996 ; Rudin 2019 ; Mirbabaie et al 2021a ).…”

“…Precisely, we intend to encourage the discourse on ethical considerations of AI in hospitals from an interdisciplinary perspective. We argue that this is of great interest to researchers and practitioners because the application of AI in hospitals is expected to increase heavily over the next decade and the impact on healthcare could be significant (Mirbabaie et al 2021a ).…”