The Health Service Executive (HSE) has “ploughed ahead” with a strategy on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the health service “without proper consultation with workers”, representative unions have said.
This week, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill launched the first national strategy for the use of AI in the State’s health and social care systems, stating it provided a “rare opportunity to reshape how care is delivered”.
The Minister said it was important to ensure intelligent technology was used in a “safe, trusted and people-centred way” so patients can be reassured their care “isn’t being outsourced to a computer”.
In a statement, the Ictu group of healthcare unions said integration of the technology into the public health service must be done in consultation with the “human backbone of the health service – its workers”.
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Edward Mathews, acting chairman of the staff panel of healthcare unions and deputy secretary general of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, said AI carried “potential benefits but also great risks”.
“Unions who represent the vast majority of healthcare workers in the State are rightly concerned that the HSE has ploughed ahead with publishing a document outlining how AI will be used in the public health service without proper consultation with workers,” he said.
“The HSE and the current and future ministers for health should not be completely transfixed by AI alone. It must enhance personal care provided to patients not replace it, and be delivered alongside continued investment in growing the public health service workforce, ensuring safe staffing in all services.”
He called for union members to be involved in “development and implementation, with co-design at the heart of all steps”.
“Starting off with no real consultation with workforce representatives is a poor beginning to a complex journey,” he said.
Kevin Figgis, head of the health division at trade union Siptu, said the future of healthcare must be “human-led”.
“There is no doubt AI technology has potential in human healthcare but it should not be at the risk of the essential nature of human-led and delivered direct patient care by the members we represent,” he added.
Ashley Connolly, head of the health and welfare decision at Fórsa, said unions have sought an “urgent meeting” with the chief technology officer at the HSE to discuss the AI policy.
“Any advancement of AI initiatives must be accompanied by appropriate protections to ensure that patient care remains safeguarded through effective human oversight,” she said.
The HSE and the Department of Health have consistently maintained that the use of AI in healthcare will not serve as a replacement for clinicians, and will instead be a tool for them.
The executive also said it will enable healthcare staff to spend less time on administrative tasks, and more time with patients.
