A new White Paper aimed at ensuring Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are integrated into healthcare delivery in a way that is usable, useful, and safe for both patients and the clinicians using them, has been welcomed by Dental Protection.
The White Paper ‘Avoiding the AI ‘Off-Switch’: Make AI Work for Clinicians, to Deliver for Patients’ is a collaboration between the MPS Foundation, the Centre for Assuring Autonomy at the University of York, and the Improvement Academy hosted at the Bradford Institute for Health Research. The MPS Foundation, along with Dental Protection, is part of the wider Medical Protection Society. The Foundation was established by MPS in 2022 to fund research in dentistry and medicine aimed at improving patient safety and clinician wellbeing.
The White Paper builds on results from the Shared CAIRE (Shared Care AI Role Evaluation) research project, which ran in partnership with the Centre for Assuring Autonomy. The research examined the impact of AI decision-support tools on clinicians - ranging from tools which simply provide information, through to those which make direct recommendations to clinicians, and conversational AI tools which can understand, process speech and respond to patient queries in real-time.
The authors concluded that to unlock the potential benefits of AI technologies to patients, more needs to be done to generate confidence in AI among the clinicians using them. The White Paper sets out several key recommendations intended to guide a range of clinicians, including dental professionals, on AI use:
- Clinicians should regard the output from AI as another clinical perspective which informs the diagnostic and treatment planning process.
- Clinicians should seek training on any AI systems they intend to use in the practice. This training should include AI capabilities, constraints, decision thresholds, and an understanding of the underlying algorithms.
- Clinicians should feel confident to discuss the use of AI and decision support systems with a patient, as part of a wider conversation around diagnosis, treatment options.
- Clinicians should engage with healthcare AI developers, when asked and where possible, to ensure that AI is user centric.
The White Paper also says healthcare organisations, including dental practices, should ensure any AI recommender systems procured have product liability which covers loss to a patient from an incorrect or harmful AI recommendation, or their contract with the AI company includes an indemnity or loss-sharing mechanism in cases where a patient alleges harm by an AI recommendation implemented by a clinician, and the clinician is subsequently held liable.
Raj Rattan, Dental Director at Dental Protection, said: “This White Paper makes an excellent and timely contribution to the discussion around the potential of AI and how it can be responsibly integrated into all aspects of healthcare delivery.
“The transformative potential of AI in all walks of life cannot be overstated, and dentistry is no exception. The dental profession needs to be supported in embracing AI, from diagnostics, record keeping and predictive analytics, to patient and practice management systems. It is important that users have a good understanding of the workings, as transparency is the key when it comes to building trust in AI and boosting user confidence.
“This could lead to a range of benefits for patients, lessen the administrative burden, streamline clinical workflows and increase efficiency.
“It is a fast-evolving field and at Dental Protection we aim to remain at the heart of it – to help ensure members and their patients reap these benefits, and to provide advice and support which helps members understand and mitigate any emergent dentolegal risks in relation to the use of AI - for example, patient consent.
“In addition, and as the White Paper rightly sets out – to unlock real benefits for patients, AI tools must work for those actually using them, and at Dental Protection we will do everything we can to ensure that message is heard by the government, AI developers and regulators.”
View the White Paper.
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Notes to editors
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About Dental Protection
Dental Protection is a registered trademark and a trading name of The Medical Protection Society Limited (“MPS”). MPS is the world’s leading protection organisation for doctors, dentists and healthcare professionals. We protect and support the professional interests of more than 300,000 members around the world. Membership provides access to expert advice and support and can also provide, depending on the type of membership required, the right to request indemnity for any complaints or claims arising from professional practice.
Our in-house experts assist with the wide range of legal and ethical problems that arise from professional practice. This can include clinical negligence claims, complaints, medical and dental council inquiries, legal and ethical dilemmas, disciplinary procedures, inquests and fatal accident inquiries.
Our philosophy is to support safe practice in medicine and dentistry by helping to avert problems in the first place. We do this by promoting risk management through our workshops, E-learning, clinical risk assessments, publications, conferences, lectures and presentations.
MPS is not an insurance company. All the benefits of membership of MPS are discretionary as set out in the Memorandum and Articles of Association.
About the MPS Foundation
The MPS Foundation is a global, not-for-profit research initiative that aims to shape the future of patient safety by investing in research, analysis, education, and training. The MPS Foundation is part of Medical Protection Society (MPS) - the world’s leading protection organisation supporting more than 300,000 doctors, dentists, and healthcare professionals around the world. The MPS Foundation
About Improvement Academy
Improvement Academy is a team of improvement scientists, patient safety experts and clinicians who are committed to working with frontline services, patients and the public to deliver real and lasting change. The team adopts a theory-based approach to improvement that’s practical, tried and tested. Improvement Academy works collaboratively with patients, clinicians and academics to refine the approach and develop expertise in disciplines that are essential for successful improvement in contemporary healthcare.
About The Centre for Assuring Autonomy
The Centre for Assuring Autonomy (CfAA) is a £10m partnership between Lloyd’s Register Foundation and the University of York. The CfAA is an independent research and innovation centre which builds on the work of the Assuring Autonomy International Programme. The CfAA is the only such centre wholly dedicated to the safety assurance of AI, autonomous systems, and robotics anywhere in the world, working across all sectors and with partner organisations across the globe. Based in the University of York, UK, the CfAA is influential in the areas of AI regulation, software engineering, safety engineering, and software safety, supporting industry and regulators in the adoption and use of our assurance frameworks, and carrying out novel research. CfAA LinkedIn