The Australian College of Nursing (ACN) has produced a new position statement on artificial intelligence (AI).
This position statement aims to provide nurses with an understanding of the core principles for the safe use of AI, recognise the vital role of AI and acknowledge the role it will play in the future of modern healthcare.
ACN advocates for the patient-centred, ethical and safe use of AI to support and enhance nursing practice, education and management. The safe and ethical application of AI in nursing relies on several principles and must be supported by strong governance.
These principles include:
- Nurses must remain decision makers and continue to use their nursing knowledge and critical thinking in the care they provide to patients and communities.
- Nurses need to be aware of generative AI when it is used in nursing: Be aware of generative AI in the digital tools they use to deliver care, including applications such as decision support, predictive tools, and automation.
- Nurses must consider the ethical implications of bias in data and algorithms that may incorporate gender, racial, and other inequalities and inequities due to the inherent limitations of generative AI across diverse populations.
- Nurses need more education on different types of AI and how it impacts care delivery, as well as a better understanding of safe and ethical applications of generative AI.
ACN Interim CEO and Professor Emeritus Leanne Boyd, FACN, said nurses are uniquely positioned to lead the development, testing, implementation and evaluation of AI in healthcare.
“AI offers many potential benefits to healthcare, but appropriate regulation and safeguards need to be built in to ensure it does not compromise patient safety, the delivery of nursing care or the profession more broadly,” Prof Boyd said.
“AI not only reduces the amount of repetitive tasks performed by nurses, but it has the potential to help solve current and future workforce challenges.
“ACN recognises the benefits that AI can bring and its potential to improve health outcomes for individual patients, their communities and Australia as a whole.”
The ACN's recommendations for managing AI in healthcare include:
- The nursing profession is committed to keeping abreast of advances in healthcare, particularly in AI, and we are promoting AI education at all levels of nursing, from undergraduate to advanced CPD levels, to ensure a comprehensive understanding of AI products, algorithmic decision-making, and legal liabilities associated with automated decision-making ( Reddy et al., 2020 ).
- To effectively advance this education, the National Nursing Midwifery Digital Health Competency Framework ( Australian Digital Health Agency, 2020 ) and the National Policy Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare ( AAAiH, 2023 ) need to be embedded in nursing curricula. The Australian College of Nursing is offering a Postgraduate Certificate in Digital Health ( ACN, 2024 ).
- Nursing informaticians must be integral to all aspects of AI applications, adhering to Australian standards and governance protocols. Healthcare organisations must prioritise principles of fairness, transparency, accountability and reliability, and ensure nurses are actively involved in governance models.
- Nurses should play a central role in designing, implementing, and evaluating AI applications to ensure that ethical and practical considerations are aligned with nursing requirements. AI should only be incorporated into nursing practice if accepted evidence indicates improved patient outcomes. It must be emphasized that AI is a tool to enhance nursing care and treatment, not a substitute for critical thinking.
- We support the recommendations outlined in the National Policy Roadmap on Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (AAAiH, 2023). We support that AI is developed within a robust safety framework, implementing accreditation to assess AI safety and quality standards of practice, and integrating a national AI ethics framework to support value-based healthcare.
- Nursing must actively participate in developing a data governance model based on the principles of integrity, transparency, auditability, accountability, control, checks and balances, standardization, and change management (The Data Governance Institute, 2023).
The ACN Position Statement: Artificial Intelligence can be found at https://www.acn.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/position-statement-artificial-intelligence.pdf .
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