Perceptions of Artificial Intelligence Among Healthcare Staff: A Qualitative Survey Study

Abstract

Objectives: The medical community is in agreement that artificial intelligence (AI) will have a radical impact on patient care in the near future. The purpose of this study is to assess the awareness of AI technologies among health professionals and to investigate their perceptions toward AI applications in medicine. Design: A web-based Google Forms survey was distributed via the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust e-newsletter. Setting: Only staff working at the NHS Foundation Trust received an invitation to complete the online questionnaire. Participants: 98 healthcare professionals out of 7,538 (response rate 1.3%; CI 95%; margin of error 9.64%) completed the survey, including medical doctors, nurses, therapists, managers, and others. Primary outcome: To investigate the prior knowledge of health professionals on the subject of AI as well as their attitudes and worries about its current and future applications. Results: 64% of respondents reported never coming across applications of AI in their work and 87% did not know the difference between machine learning and deep learning, although 50% knew at least one of the two terms. Furthermore, only 5% stated using speech recognition or transcription applications on a daily basis, while 63% never utilize them. 80% of participants believed there may be serious privacy issues associated with the use of AI and 40% considered AI to be potentially even more dangerous than nuclear weapons. However, 79% also believed AI could be useful or extremely useful in their field of work and only 10% were worried AI will replace them at their job. Conclusions: Despite agreeing on the usefulness of AI in the medical field, most health professionals lack a full understanding of the principles of AI and are worried about potential consequences of its widespread use in clinical practice. The cooperation of healthcare workers is crucial for the integration of AI into clinical practice and without it the NHS may miss out on an exceptionally rewarding opportunity. This highlights the need for better education and clear regulatory frameworks.

Exploring stakeholder attitudes towards AI in clinical practice

“… 16 Among 98 UK clinicians (including 34 doctors, 23 nurses, 30 allied health professionals), 80% expressed privacy concerns and 40% considered AI potentially dangerous (indeed as bad as nuclear weapons, although this response was primed by reference to a film in which Elon Musk expressed similar sentiments). 17 However, 79% also believed AI could assist their field of work and 90% had no fear of job loss. In a survey of 250 hospital employees from four hospitals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (nurses=121; doctors=70; technicians=59), the majority stated AI could reduce errors (67%), speed up care processes (70%) and deliver large amounts of high-quality, clinically relevant data in real time (65%).…”

“…A total of 27 articles were included of which most (16, 59%) targeted clinicians, [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] 8 (30%) focused on consumers (including patients), [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] 1 (4%) on health executives 27 and 2 (7%) on industry stakeholders comprising AI vendors, researchers and regulators. 28 29 Detailed study descriptions are provided in the online supplemental appendix and summary results are listed in table 1.…”

“…Improved diagnostic accuracy; fewer errors 3 5 More efficient work flows 4 5 17 18 Less time spent on administrative and other mundane tasks 3 13 Synthesis of clinical information 15 18 Updating of clinical records 14 More time spent with patients 5 Improved access to care 3 Liability for AI-mediated errors 3 Insufficient training and continuing professional development in AI 3 5 7 8 12 Reputational loss and reduced demand for specialist opinion 9 18 Potential erosion of empathetic communication with patients 13 18 Risk of privacy breaches and loss of confidentiality of patient information 17 Lack of proof of efficacy of AI applications in clinical settings 3 29 Lack of explainability 16…”

Population Preferences for Performance and Explainability of Artificial Intelligence in Health Care: Choice-Based Conjoint Survey

“…Studies of perceptions of AI use in the medical context have taken different approaches. Some have studied the perceptions of AI use among health care professionals [20][21][22][23]. We focused here, however, on the public or patient perceptions of AI in the health care context.…”

The perceptions of medical physicists towards relevance and impact of artificial intelligence

“…Several studies have focused on healthcare professionals' perception and attitude towards AI [15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. In medical physics, the only study on the perceptions, practices, and education needs about AI focused on European medical physics experts and their needs [10].…”