Report calls for all healthcare staff to get AI training
By Gemma Raw
The NHS Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (NHS AI Lab) and Health Education England (HEE) have set out plans to embed Artificial Intelligence (AI) skills and capabilities throughout the healthcare workforce.
Developing healthcare workers' confidence in AI (Part 2) is the second document in a two-stage study published by the NHS AI Lab and HEE. It provides recommendations for education and training providers in England to plan, resource, develop and deliver new AI training packages for those working in a range of healthcare jobs.
Part One of the report, published in May this year, outlined a conceptual framework for understanding what factors impact on confidence in AI among healthcare workers. Researchers found that the vast majority of doctors, nurses and other clinical staff were unfamiliar with AI technologies and there was a risk that, without appropriate training and support, many patients could lose out on the benefits offered by AI as it's rolled out across the NHS over the coming years.
“For the NHS to wholly embrace new AI technologies so they are adopted equitably across the country it is vital that we ensure all our staff receive appropriate training in AI," said Brhmie Balaram, Head of AI Research and Ethics at the NHS AI Lab. “This important new research will support those organisations that train our health and care workers to develop their curriculums to ensure staff of the future receive the training in AI they will need."
Shaping the future of healthcare
AI has the potential to transform healthcare, mainly because of its ability to analyse large quantities of complex information.
The NHS aims to be a world leader in the use of AI and a number of technologies are already being used in healthcare settings, impacting various workforce groups including doctors, nurses and diagnostic radiographers. For example, Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge is using Microsoft’s InnerEye system to automatically process radiography scans for patients with prostate cancer, drastically cutting waiting times.
In February, HEE published the AI Roadmap, which aims to understand the use of AI and data-driven technologies currently being used in the healthcare system, the uptake of these new technologies and the impact on the healthcare workforce.
Wider workforce transformation
One of the other key messages to come out of the NHS AI Lab and HEE research was the need for a strategy to deliver wider workforce transformation. The success of AI education and training will be dependent on evolving the workforce to be digital-ready. That means recruiting healthcare staff with specialist AI skills, including expertise in clinical informatics and general digital, data and technology skills. It also involves creating new leadership roles to help drive AI adoption and support deployment.
"The onus isn’t only on clinicians to upskill," commented Balaram. "It’s important that the NHS can reassure the workforce that these systems can be trusted by ensuring that we have a culture that supports staff to adopt innovative technologies.”
Find out more about the work of the NHS AI Lab here.
