The Commission releases three pragmatic AI guides for clinicians

New AI tools and technologies can bring significant benefits for patient care and are being rapidly developed and implemented, but they can also introduce new risks — especially “as evidence of safety and efficacy may lag behind implementation”, according to the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (the Commission).

Now, to support clinicians in the day-to-day use of AI tools, the Commission has released three pragmatic guides, which are:

• AI Clinical Use Guide
• AI Safety Scenario — Interpretation of Medical Images
• AI Safety Scenario — Ambient Scribe
   

Developed by the Commission in order to help clinicians meet their professional responsibilities in using AI tools safely and responsibly, the short and pragmatic guides cover:

• reviewing the evidence on the efficacy of the AI tool;
• common limitations and risks of AI;
• transparency in the use of AI and informed consent;
• understanding the implications for patient information;
• understanding AI and automation bias; and
• ongoing evaluation and monitoring of AI tools.
   

You can access the three 2025 guides here, via the Commission’s website, where you will also find the 2024 report ‘AI implementation in hospitals: legislation, policy, guidelines and principles, and evidence about quality and safety’.

For the report, the Commission engaged Macquarie University and the University of Wollongong to provide a literature review and environmental scan to identify principles that enable the safe and responsible implementation of AI in health care.

Image credit: iStock.com/sturti