Dr. Ted Longinow was picketing at the Allina Health hospital in Coon Rapids, where he has worked for three decades, because he said physicians need a stronger role in decision-making at Mercy, where he believes the adoption of AI tools could interfere with their judgments about patients’ needs.
“We’re going to be seeing [AI] on the front lines sooner” in hospital care, said Longinow, a hospitalist (or inpatient doctor) at Mercy. “We want to be able to raise concerns about that for our patients and have a voice.”
The dispute over physician involvement in changes including AI use wasn’t the only reason for the strike, which is believed to be the first in U.S. history by staff doctors at a non-governmental hospital. The two sides remain divided on wages and sick pay, among other issues.
But the Mercy doctors said it will remain a priority when the walkout ends at 7 a.m. Friday and they return to bargaining after nearly two years and more than 60 negotiating sessions.
Allina is a big user of AI…
Allina has been an early adopter of artificial intelligence technologies, including a system that takes notes and summarizes them that has been well-received by doctors. The hospital also is using AI tools through a partnership with Ferrum Health to double-check doctors’ reads of imaging scans and cancer diagnoses.
Patient rooms in the expanded Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis include video boards capable of disseminating AI-gathered summaries to patients about their conditions and medical care.
AI tools also can help physicians select the best billing codes to maximize revenue from insurers, but that’s a slippery slope toward tools that could weed out high-cost patients, said Dr. John Wust, a staff obstetrician at Mercy’s Coon Rapids campus, who was striking this week.
[Added 30 minutes after original posting – a different video on the same topic from KARE11]