At our fall symposium Health Workforce Canada Connects: Advancing Health Workforce, we brought together people committed to improving health workforce data and planning as we continue to build a workforce that delivers care in a way that’s healthy for both workers and for patients.
Here are some insights and actions coming out of the workshops at the symposium – solutions that will drive improvements in health workforce data, planning, care delivery and worker wellness.
Workshop: Supporting the Health Workforce and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Participants heard from experts from eight Pan-Canadian health organizations* on promising AI technologies to support our health workforce. This included system navigation, AI Scribe, workflow automation and auto-coding. Breakout sessions gave participants the opportunity to join the discussion about the technology of most interest to them.
Key Insights
- AI can be used to support the health workforce in a wide range of settings including emergency departments, primary care offices, speciality outpatient clinics and in the community.
- Examples were presented of AI’s ability to enhance efficiency, quality, patient safety and outcomes, clinician and patient satisfaction and evidence-based decision-making.
Key Actions
- When piloting and implementing AI in healthcare, it is important to meaningfully involve the health workforce throughout all phases of the project, and to always build in an evaluation component.
- Use caution and learn from others, about how to mitigate for risks related to privacy, ethics and biases, inherent with the use of AI.
- Pan-Canadian Health Organizations (PCHOs) can play a key role in accelerating the safe and ethical use of AI in healthcare in Canada.
*Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, Canada’s Drug Agency, Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, Canadian Institute for Health Information, Healthcare Excellence Canada, Health Workforce Canada, Canada Health Infoway and Mental Health Commission of Canada.