Considering the Safety and Quality of Artificial Intelligence in Health Care

The role of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) in the health care sector is rapidly expanding. This expansion may be accelerated by the global spread of COVID-19, which has provided new opportunities for AI prediction, screening, and image processing capabilities.1 Applications of AI can be as straightforward as using natural language processing to turn clinical notes into electronic data points or as complex as a deep learning neural network performing image analysis for diagnostic support. The goal of these tools is not to replace health care professionals, but to enable better patient experience and better inform the clinical decision-making process to improve the safety and reliability of clinicians. Clinicians and health systems using these new tools should be aware of some of the key issues related to safety and quality in the development and use of machine learning and AI. The performance of a chatbot on a shopping website poses little harm to users, but AI used in health care, particularly clinical decision supports or diagnostic tools, can have significant impact on a patient's treatment.