Artificial Intelligence and Human Factors in Healthcare Quality & Safety

ABSTRACT Machine-learning and sophisticated tools of Artificial Intelligence (AI) promise to revolutionize healthcare in the coming decade, including healthcare process improvement, patient safety, and augmentation of value. However, decades of research and experience have shown that a focus on understanding the human factors which underlie healthcare processes is essential to quality improvement and error prevention. We will convene a national-level dissemination and implementation conference on human factors in Healthcare focused on the issue of Human Factors Engineering (HFE) approaches to health care quality improvement, patient safety, and value in the era of healthcare AI. Our conference will bring together recognized academic, clinical and industry experts, and other key stakeholders with two over-arching goals: (1) to distill, clarify and broadly disseminate state-of-the-art knowledge and best practices in human factors applications to quality improvement in healthcare, and (2) to highlight the key role of the human/AI interface and the “Human/AI Dyad” in the AI era for healthcare. Our conference will also include a smaller, focused “research summit” with recognized experts to better define the research agenda in the field for the next 5-7 years. This summit will report to the broader meeting to help inform the dialogue and will also produce a whitepaper summarizing recommendations for future research. Our goal is to provide a platform to nucleate and nurture multidisciplinary collaborations among the diverse attendees to advance the field of human factors (HF) in healthcare quality and safety in the era of Healthcare AI. Our proposed conference is, to our knowledge, the first to apply the tools of HFE and SE to the integration of AI into the healthcare quality and safety enterprise. The target audience includes individual health care providers and health administrators, top leaders in healthcare organizations and integrated healthcare delivery networks, health insurers, government and public policy officials, private charitable foundations concerned with improving the quality, safety, efficiency and value of healthcare delivery, patient advocacy groups and academic researchers. We believe that convening such a conference is timely and dovetails well with AHRQ priorities.