A survey of 200 healthcare decision makers has revealed that while most industry professionals believe AI (artificial intelligence) will be beneficial, one third of respondents said they wouldn’t trust AI just in case it made a fatal error.
The survey, conducted by Intel in partnership with Convergys Analytics, primarily focused on attitudes to artificial intelligence and perceived barriers to its adoption. Some 200 decision makers in healthcare organizations took part.
Regarding adoption rates, 19 percent of those surveyed said that it would take less than two years for AI to be widespread in healthcare, 35 percent said it would take 3 to 5 years, 32 percent believe it’ll take 5 to 10 years, and just 11 percent said they think it will take more than 10 years. Of the participants, 37 percent already use AI today, but mostly in a limited capacity.
What’s more, as part of the survey, Intel wanted to find out which reasons professionals had for being skeptical of AI. To this end, the findings showed that 54 percent believe AI will be responsible for a fatal error, 53 percent said AI will be poorly implemented or won’t work properly, and 49 percent said AI will be overhyped and not meet expectations.
While many were certainly skeptical about AI, the majority of respondents did believe that AI will improve predictive analytics for intervention (91 percent) and clinical decision support (91 percent). Furthermore, 88 percent of respondents said that AI would enable multiple specialists to interact/improve patient care, and 84 percent stated that those who don’t invest in AI will fall behind, with 83 percent opining that AI will improve the accuracy of medical diagnoses.
Adding to this, 81 percent of survey respondents said AI would improve efficiency and decrease healthcare costs, while 75 percent were of the opinion that clinicians would spend more time with patients because routine tasks would become automated.
In the end, Intel executives believe that for AI accepted and integrated into healthcare, four tasks will need to be achieved. First, officials said, the “black box” perception needs to be addressed, meaning people need to understand what the AI is doing. Second, AI needs to be able to perform simple tasks before undertaking complex tasks. Third, the benefits that AI will bring need to be clearly highlighted so that people are more receptive to it. And finally, the healthcare sector needs to provide feedback into the regulatory process.
