How AI is regulated will have everything to do with its success or failure in perioperative environments, said Julie Lynch MS, BSN, RN, director of the Institute for Quality Improvement at the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC), who delved into how the tool can be implemented responsibly during her session, “Leading AI safely: A practical governance framework for perioperative leaders,” at Periop Leader Week.
“Technology changes fast,” Ms. Lynch said, “but good governance endures.”
Perioperative leaders who attended provided a feel for where AI stands in their own workplaces during the session. Most everyone said AI is currently being used both in administrative and clinical settings, but only a few admitted they actually know how it’s used or whether they have an AI governance plan implemented. And no one in attendance had ever performed an actual AI risk assessment.
By providing a few examples of AI uses and mishaps (bias is a big one), Ms. Lynch’s session sounded the alarm for guardrails specific to perioperative environments. Each attendee received a link to AAAHC’s rules of governance that’s designed to navigate these tough questions and to implement an AI program that considers all of the benefits, risks and oversight strategies.
“You can’t always assume it’s right,” said Ms. Lynch. “AI should support human expertise, but never replace human judgment.”
Preparedness was also the focus of “Cybersecurity in the OR: Safeguarding patient safety and surgical workflow,” a session that nurtured proactive planning rather over doomsday fears. It’s a loaded issue knowing that every OR is dependent on interconnected technology, real-time data and highly coordinated workflows, and that a systems interruption can make patient safety especially vulnerable.
For cybersecurity protocols to truly work, Sharon Udy-Janczuk, EdD, MSN, RN, CNOR-PEDS, CPN, NE-BC, clinical nurse educator at Nemours Children’s Health in Wilmington, Del., said perioperative leaders need to accept they are integral to every hospital network. She encouraged organizations to identify potential problems and create sustainable solutions long before there’s ever a breach. When her own hospital began taking the issue seriously, vulnerabilities were detected almost everywhere from patient care and clinical orders to overall infrastructure. But they knew how to respond before catastrophe struck.
Barbara Shannon, DNP, MBA, MSN, BSN, RN, CNOR, administrator at Nemours’ Surgery Center in Malvern, Pa., also championed constant and ongoing collaboration when it comes to cybersecurity. Fortunately, she said, verification processes are already embedded into healthcare culture, particularly when it comes to the OR, so these goals of being regimented and at the ready should come fairly naturally to those used to check lists. With preparedness as a stalwart to surgical settings, it makes sense to apply the same standards to risk communication, IT, staff training and overall response training. But it can still be daunting.
One way to get started is to create a project list that can be used during patient safety events, said Jacqueline Jenkins, MSN, RN, CNOR, director of perioperative services, also at Nemours. She admitted that lot of skills that she and her colleagues acquired in the pre-digital age, like using log books and paper, have actually been useful during preparedness drills. Doing simulations of what can happen during a cyberattack has been effective at her hospital in educating people on how to respond hands on. “It’s not if it’s going to happen, but when it’s going to happen,” she said, especially as cyberattacks escalate in frequency and complexity.
The panelists happily fielded many questions from attendees, like how an organization can train new and longtime staff, how to create believable simulations and what happens when external vendors have their own security breaches. All three women agreed that safe patient care has to be the priority, and that education needs to be an ongoing process.
