As that workplace advocacy and bargaining continue, educators and researchers also have their eyes on the future: They\u2019re trying to build solutions to support the next generation of nurses through training and involvement in how patient-facing AI is developed and deployed. By giving nurses a voice in AI\u2019s inevitable disruption of health care, they hope to make the current adversarial relationship more collaborative.<\/p>\n
Nurses\u2019 perspective on the impact of clinical AI is often overlooked, said Jing Wang, dean at the Florida State University College of Nursing \u2014 despite being the \u201cbiggest users\u201d of the technology. Of the 18 million people who work in health care<\/a>, more than 4 million are nurses, compared to about a million doctors. But as clinical AI becomes commonplace in hospitals and home settings, they have often been left out of conversations about appropriate deployment of the tools. <\/p>\n \u201cNurses are fearful of AI,\u201d Wang said, and \u201cit\u2019s because nurses were oftentimes not at the table when decisions were made to adopt AI.\u201d While their logs of vital signs and medications have become the fuel that powered a new generation of automated sepsis alerts, for example, they are also the ones responsible for responding to frequent false positives and caring for patients the algorithm missed<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s where the tension is,\u201d Wang said. \u201cI had a bad experience with technology before that didn\u2019t work. What do you expect me to do?\u201d <\/p>\n Wang wants to help change those dynamics. In 2024, FSU launched the first nursing degree with a concentration on AI, with the goal of training AI-literate nurses who can think critically about the pros and cons of the rapidly evolving technology in their work. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople feel like, well, these tools are going to change anyway, so we don\u2019t need to teach them \u2014 leave that to the hospital,\u201d Wang said. \u201cThat\u2019s not right. We actually have to teach them whatever we have right now,\u201d so they can develop the skills to evaluate new tools.” <\/p>\n It\u2019s a struggle to find the right balance, Wang said. Right now, the master\u2019s program with a concentration in AI is focused on AI application: Once you have a new tool, how do you think about implementing it and applying it in the clinical setting to support the patient, and what are the appropriate guardrails for use? <\/p>\n Toward the end of the program, each student spends a semester working with nurse preceptors to propose or implement an AI solution. Some students work with an IT department to vet several AI vendors, or with private companies testing telehealth and virtual coaching. Others will submit a tool for institutional review, including details of how it will be evaluated for performance, assessed for cybersecurity, and implemented in compliance with patient privacy protections. <\/p>\n With that kind of experience, the hope is that once they\u2019re at the bedside, new nurses will be able to support the appropriate implementation of new tools when consulted, and raise evidence-based concerns when they\u2019re necessary. <\/p>\n That\u2019s the opposite of the dynamic some nurses see today, said Cathy Kennedy, a president of National Nurses United, which has conducted surveys of workforce opinions on AI and published a nurse and patient AI bill of rights<\/a>, as they advocate for working nurses and their patients. <\/p>\n \u201cThe fear is when you have nurses that are new to their careers, they don\u2019t have the lived experience\u201d to question the output of less-than-perfect AI tools, and they\u2019re more likely to simply go along with their suggestions, Kennedy said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to explain it\u2019s important to use your critical-thinking skills.\u201d <\/p>\n When nurses are unionized, they can use the power of collective bargaining to realize some of those changes. \u201cIf there\u2019s a change to any working conditions, including an introduction of any technology, we have a right to bargain over those conditions,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cDo they get around that? Absolutely. Do the nurses fight back in unionized facilities? Absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n In nonunion facilities, pushing back can be more difficult, contributing to the burnout that has pushed many nurses out of the workforce.<\/p>\n \u201cPatients are not just as sick, but sicker than they\u2019ve ever been before in those environments,\u201d said Rae Walker, who directs the nursing PhD program at the UMass Amherst. \u201cThe nurses have as many, if not more, demands, and they\u2019re being asked to do work that often exceeds human capacity.\u201d Increasing adoption of AI often means that nurses are on the hook to constantly respond to continuous monitors and automated alerts. <\/p>\n To aid nurses in those challenging work conditions, Walker in 2025 published the Digital Defense Toolkit<\/a>, a compilation of resources and tools to better equip nurses and other care workers to protect themselves and those they care for. The goal, Walker said, is \u201cboth to intervene in spaces where the AI technologies appear to perhaps be causing harm or posing a risk, but also where there is potential to actually intervene in a positive way.\u201d <\/p>\n Among many potential steps, the toolkit suggests possible questions a nurse can ask about a tool: What recourse do I have if something goes wrong with an automated tool? Who is liable for any harms that result from the use of a technology? And if a tool is introduced as a way to improve efficiency and increase time spent with patients, what\u2019s the plan to evaluate whether it\u2019s fulfilling that objective? <\/p>\n Walker is also working to develop an index that helps health care workers measure how the design and implementation of digital tools are affecting their well-being and work environment. Often, the negative impact of an AI tool on the health care workforce isn\u2019t as visible as potential patient harms, such as a false alarm or a missed prediction. <\/p>\n Algorithmic outputs can be used to determine how sick a patient is, for example, which informs how many nurses need to be on staff. \u201cThe tech is becoming more and more an excuse to reduce the degree to which there is a human workforce that is trained and consistent to be able to meet the needs,\u201d Walker said. Nurse administrators are \u201cin a sort of desperate situation right now, where they\u2019re not the ultimate decision-makers, and they\u2019re still pretty low on the budget power hierarchy, but they are nonetheless responsible for staffing their units.\u201d<\/p>\n Advocates say that if new technology in medicine is meant to help existing clinicians provide better care, then actively involving nurses in the development of AI will help create solutions that are more likely to fulfill that promise. <\/p>\n At FSU, Wang and her colleagues this month received a $1.6 million grant<\/a> from the National Institutes of Health to train nurse scientists to develop AI solutions and scientifically evaluate their ability to impact patient outcomes. And the school has already launched a consortium<\/a> of AI developers, health systems, and educators to create guidelines for nurses\u2019 participation in AI governance and adoption. <\/p>\n \u201cWe want more people to be generating the evidence, so nurses can be competent and confident in implementing those interventions that are powered by AI to guide their day-to-day practice,\u201d Wang said. At the same time, she acknowledges that the technology is evolving more rapidly than anyone can keep up. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s coming so fast,\u201d NNU\u2019s Kennedy said. \u201cWe really need to get a handle on this to make sure we\u2019re doing right by patients.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As that workplace advocacy and bargaining continue, educators and researchers also have their eyes on the future: They\u2019re…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[275],"tags":[12773,160,64,18,135,475,474,19,17,711,695,154,4188],"class_list":["post-634799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-care","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-michigan","tag-nurse","tag-pandemic","tag-worker"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117087668868403002","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}