Posted on 07/16/2020 12:15:38 PM PDT by ransomnote
Since February of last year, tens of thousands of patients hospitalized at one of Minnesota’s largest health systems have had their discharge planning decisions informed with help from an artificial intelligence model. But few if any of those patients has any idea about the AI involved in their care.
That’s because frontline clinicians at M Health Fairview generally don’t mention the AI whirring behind the scenes in their conversations with patients.
At a growing number of prominent hospitals and clinics around the country, clinicians are turning to AI-powered decision support tools — many of them unproven — to help predict whether hospitalized patients are likely to develop complications or deteriorate, whether they’re at risk of readmission, and whether they’re likely to die soon. But these patients and their family members are often not informed about or asked to consent to the use of these tools in their care, a STAT examination has found.
The result: Machines that are completely invisible to patients are increasingly guiding decision-making in the clinic.
Hospitals and clinicians “are operating under the assumption that you do not disclose, and that’s not really something that has been defended or really thought about,” Harvard Law School professor Glenn Cohen said. Cohen is the author of one of only a few articles examining the issue, which has received surprisingly scant attention in the medical literature even as research about AI and machine learning proliferates.
In some cases, there’s little room for harm: Patients may not need to know about an AI system that’s nudging their doctor to be more thoughtful, such as with algorithms meant to encourage clinicians to broach end-of-life conversations. But in other cases, lack of disclosure means that patients may never know what happened if an AI model makes a faulty recommendation that is part of the reason they are denied needed care or undergo an unnecessary, costly, or even harmful intervention.
That’s a real risk, because some of these AI models are fraught with bias, and even those that have been demonstrated to be accurate largely haven’t yet been shown to improve patient outcomes. Some hospitals don’t share data on how well the systems work, justifying the decision on the grounds that they are not conducting research. But that means that patients are not only being denied information about whether the tools are being used in their care, but also about whether the tools are actually helping them.
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Why was Mrs Jones terminated? A: the AI system decided it was best for her to go peacefully. There is no recourse, and you cannot sue an AI system.
You’re next.
Kill...All...Humans...
Right. So eventually doctors will just punch in a bunch of codes and let the computer do the work. They will lose their skill and experience and no longer be able to have a hunch to try something different. If this was 30 years ago their would be an uproar.
So they use Web MD in the clinics now? No wonder why everybody had the Covid.
Just do what the computer tells you. It’s for your own good.
I sometimes wonder if one of my VA doctors is using such a system. She is nice enough, encourages a lot of talking from the patient, on how they feel that day, but almost never does she ever voice an opinion or come to any conclusions on what the base issue may be.
Only If I ask her directly if X is the problem, will she remark, and then, usually just to recommend making another appointment to take yet another ‘test’.
My primary VA doctors tend to be changed about once a year.
It is their system. She will be changed for another Doc in a few months. I look forward to that change.
So, cylons are now in charge of our health care decisions.
I lived in Minnesota for ten years and found the doctors stuck on cookie cutter formulas. They could not understand anything outside the cookie cutter. Notably a man in his 50’s still in competitive cycling. It was a deviation from the standard demographic. So after getting a chest X-ray after a good competitive season, I get told that I had congestive heart failure. It was the only explanation for the size of my heart. A man over 50 was simply incapable of training over 200 miles a week.
I do not recognize any professional license issued by the State of Minnesota.
They missed the BIG problem, what the machine is deciding is the least costly acceptable treatment for the client...the insurance company. It may not be the best or least problematic for the patient, but the outcome is best...for the insurance company.
DK
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Good morning. I will be administering your medication.
A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by men with compassion and vision
My father is 92 and is recovering from intestinal surgery. The doctor bleakly warned that my father’s sudden severe gut pain was due to colon cancer and that he would be headed to hospice after surgery. Any other possibility was discounted, a certainty no doubt endorsed by AI odds-making. Mercifully, there was no cancer and my father’s pain was due to a readily treatable hernia. He will soon be headed home within a week, to again cheer on Trump and watch American Pickers.
Fagen is good.
Also, Richard Brautigan:
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
My husband refers to them as “flow chart doctors”. There are some that have gotten pretty mad about it. Most don’t want to dig a little deeper to find out what is actually wrong.
Nice!
My father is 92 and is recovering from intestinal surgery. The doctor bleakly warned that my father’s sudden severe gut pain was due to colon cancer and that he would be headed to hospice after surgery. Any other possibility was discounted, a certainty no doubt endorsed by AI odds-making. Mercifully, there was no cancer and my father’s pain was due to a readily treatable hernia. He will soon be headed home within a week, to again cheer on Trump and watch American Pickers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Still, that was quite an emotional blow to receive and then an SNL Emily LaTella version of, “Never mind.” Impacts to quality of life of the recovered! :/ But still, I’m happy he is doing well now. :D
Your medical care decided by a government computer with algorithms designed by the likes of Dr. Death, Ezekiel Emanuel. Can anyone say Death Panels?
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