Publication:

Artificial intelligence and dichotomy on benefits and challenges: what do healthcare providers say?

Background In a developing country like India, with a vibrant information technology (IT) sector, employing Artificial Intelligence (AI) should be carefully weighed before its introduction in healthcare with relation to perception of healthcare providers (HCP's/Doctors).

Methods This qualitative study was conducted in medical college and affiliated hospital in India. Initially a pilot study was conducted for reliability and internal consistency of questionnaire. Thereafter, pre-tested questionnaire was distributed to 153 healthcare providers and their responses were analyzed on SPSS version 20.0 (IBM) to identify the demographic and job-related differences in their perception regarding the benefits and challenges of using AI in healthcare.

Results Most of respondent were agreed upon the benefits of using AI in healthcare and most cited benefits were speedy decision making, better resource utilization and improvement in staff satisfaction. Similarly most cited challenges were lack of training on AI enabled machines, lack of skilled technical support, high cost of AI and data privacy issue. Further, Age and Job experience were significantly associated with benefits like timely and speedy decision making, improvement in the patient and staff satisfaction respectively. Furthermore, Age, Department, Job experience, Job profile were significantly associated with challenges like high cost of AI, lack of skilled technical support, lack of training in AI enabled machines and lack of trust in AI among patients.

Conclusions Significant challenges of using AI in healthcare with demographic and job related variable based on the results of this research paper need to be resolved first in order to overcome the initial resistance in employing AI in healthcare.