High confidence in AI in healthcare, but not as a panacea 

Healthcare professionals primarily view AI as a solution for administrative relief, but not yet for direct patient care 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often presented as the solution to staff shortages in healthcare, but healthcare professionals have a more nuanced view. They have the most confidence in AI for monitoring home measurements (75 %) and administrative tasks (69 %), while confidence in AI for diagnostics is significantly lower (50 %). This is evident from research conducted by the business transformation and IT service provider, Conclusion, into digital transformation in the Dutch healthcare sector, carried out among 643 healthcare professionals, including IT decision-makers, CMIOs/CNIOs, healthcare managers, and doctors. 

Despite their confidence in AI for specific tasks, healthcare professionals are ambivalent about the technology. More than half of the respondents (55 %) believe that AI is overrated as a solution to staff shortages, while at the same time 45 % do see AI as a means of preventing staff turnover. Furthermore, almost half (48 %) believe that AI will mainly be used to see more patients, rather than to actually reduce the workload. 

The expected improvements through the use of AI mainly focus on faster administrative processes (59 %), reducing the workload (55 %) and smarter planning (37 %). At the same time, 40 % fear that Dutch healthcare will grind to a halt without radical digitisation. 

The greatest opportunities for AI are seen in administrative tasks and reporting. Fifty-nine per cent see opportunities for AI in file creation. Confidence in AI for this specific task is even higher, at 69 %. The figures are similar for monitoring patients’ home measurements: 57 % of respondents see opportunities, and three-quarters of respondents (75 %) have confidence in it. 

Confidence is considerably lower for other AI applications. Predictive models are trusted by 54 %, chatbots by 53 %, and AI diagnosis by 50 %. 

Technologies that are already widely used enjoy greater confidence. Remote monitoring tops the list with 84 % confidence, followed by voice-controlled reporting (73 %) – an application in which AI is often already used invisibly. Among the most important future technologies, AI ranks only fourth (30 %), after home monitoring and remote care (55 %), patient portals and self-management apps (54 %), and voice-controlled reporting (49 %). 

Despite confidence in AI for certain applications, there are also obstacles. More than a third of respondents (37 %) believe that innovation in healthcare is hampered by fear and risk aversion. We see this reflected in AI as well: 33 % believe that this technology could be more useful, but that organisations are still too afraid to apply it. 

Bas Wencker, data manager at Furore Conclusion, said: ‘AI can help advance healthcare and relieve the burden on healthcare professionals, but only if we use it wisely, particularly for administrative tasks and monitoring, where our research shows it makes the biggest difference. Healthcare professionals see the opportunities, but rightly warn that AI is not a panacea for all problems. Moreover, we must not forget that AI can only be used on a large scale if the underlying data provision is also in order; this is really a necessary foundation.’