AMA VICDOC Spring 2023 - Magazine - Page 69
HEALTHCARE SECTOR
APPROACH TO AI REQUIRED
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This AMA Media Release was issued:
Thursday 27 July 2023
Australia needs stronger governance and
regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and
the health sector requires its own separate
strategy to protect patients, consumers,
healthcare professionals and their data.
In a submission to a Department of
Industry, Science and Resources discussion
paper, Supporting responsible AI, the
Australian Medical Association said the
key challenge with AI in Australia is it
remains largely unregulated with a lack
of transparency on the ethical principles
of AI developers and no real governance
arrangements in place.
AMA President Professor Steve Robson
said the AMA sees significant opportunities
in the appropriate application of AI in
healthcare, provided proper governance
arrangements are put in place.
“AI is a rapidly evolving field with
varying degrees of understanding among
clinicians, other healthcare professionals,
administrators, consumers and the
wider community.
“We need to address the AI regulation
gap in Australia, but especially in healthcare
where there is the potential for patient
injury from system errors, systemic bias
embedded in algorithms and increased
risk to patient privacy.
“We applaud the government for
undertaking these important discussions
and we think a separate discussion with
all health sector stakeholders needs
to happen.
“There are key health principles that
need to be introduced into AI, for example
ensuring patients and practitioners consent
to the episode of care and/or their personal
data being used for machine learning.
“There has been a lot of good work done
by the EU, Canada and other countries
around privacy, data ownership and
governance that we can learn from and
adapt to the Australian and healthcare
contexts, and we need to examine this
through the healthcare lens, so we get
it right for the future wellbeing of
our patients.”
The AMA’s position on successful
regulation of AI in healthcare, is that
a common set of agreed principles
are embedded in legislation that
establish a compliance baseline for
all those involved under appropriate
governance of AI.
Those principles should ensure:
» safety and quality of care provided
to patients
» patient data privacy and protection
» appropriate application of
medical ethics
» equity of access and equity of
outcomes through elimination
of bias
» transparency in how algorithms
used by AI and ADM (application
data management) tools are
developed and applied
» that the final decision on
treatment should always rest
with the patient and the medical
professional, while at the same
time recognising the instances
where responsibility will have
to be shared between the AI
(manufacturers), the medical
professionals and service
providers (hospitals or
medical practices).
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