AI Vs Nurses. What’s Next, Your Doctor?

If an algorithm told you that you were not serving the best interest of a patient, how would you take it as a nurse who has been doing your job for 20 years? This was what happened recently to an oncology nurse named Melissa Beebe, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Beebe said she knows a septic patient when she sees one, having worked with cancer patients for 15 years. In a recent case, she had to be the diligent nurse and followed protcol and an algorithm based on artificial intelligence.

Later, she found out the algorithm was wrong. As she was quoted as saying later, “I’m not demonizing technology, but I feel moral distress when I know the right thing to do and I can’t do it.”

Who gets the blame if something goes wrong

While the nurse can countermand the AI model if she gets doctor approval, she said she faces disciplinary action if she’s wrong. So she followed orders — in this case, the algorithm, which reportedly didn’t explain its decision. And to think it was wrong.

It may appear like an isolated incident but in a survey by the National Nurses United publication, about 20% of 1,042 nurses were confronted by an algorithm for not serving “in the best interest of patients based on their clinical judgment and scope of practice.” Of those, 17% said they were permitted…