Mr Patsy McGlone (Mid Ulster): To ask the Minister of Health for his assessment of the (i) opportunities; and (ii) challenges for his Department in relation to the development of Artificial Intelligence.
Minister of Health: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI technologies offer opportunities to free-up capacity and improve productivity and quality of care services through the ability to analyse large quantities of complex information, support effective decision making, automate administrative processes and draft summary information from a range of inputs.
Other UK administrations are already exploring and proving the benefits of AI in Health and Care, with opportunities including:
Using AI to improve back-office efficiency
Data-driven demand management, for automated referrals and intelligent triage
Natural language processing for efficient reading and coding of clinical records
Using AI to support clinical and operational service delivery
AI driven patient engagement platforms for maximising hospital resources by reducing DNAs, reducing cancellation rates and reducing face-to-face appointments.
AI to prioritise and manage patient flow and staff tasks, like for logistics teams like porters and cleaners, and in the future for clinical support teams
The potential capabilities of this technology must be set against the potential risks – for instance in the areas of clinical efficacy and information governance. In these areas the Department of Health and the Health and Social Care (HSC) system needs to ensure that the tools provided are trustworthy and do not breach the privacy of patients or service users.
Additionally, the wide adoption of advanced technologies like AI/GenAI require a number of underlying enablers – including good quality, codified data that describes a service users needs and historic episodes and treatments (for training purposes), the clinical safety and ethical governance structures that are required to oversee the safe introduction of these AI tools, and skills in cloud services engineering and security (recognising that the compute power required to run AI algorithms is often best provided from cloud technologies).
The Department of Health and its partners in the HSC are establishing structures to develop these enablers and explore the capabilities of providers and products, with a particular focus in the first instance on medical image analysis for diagnostic purposes, an area with growing evidence to support clinical effectiveness.
ENDS
Your MLA 