Evolving Professional Roles in Tomorrow's Healthcare: Shifts in an Information-Driven Environment

Content

The poster presents an overview of our studies and results that are relevant to professional roles and professional competence in healthcare and focuses on the development where artificial intelligence (AI) is predicted to transform healthcare by enhancing efficiency, saving time and optimizing resources use. As a core component in information-driven care, AI has the potential to reshape how healthcare is delivered. Therefore, we need to investigate and understand AI’s integration into clinical practice, as this technology is likely to significantly alter the roles, responsibilities, and working conditions of healthcare professionals.

To explore how AI integration is transforming the roles, responsibilities, and work environments of healthcare professionals, we have gathered perspectives from interviews with key stakeholders and users through the following studies:

• Healthcare leaders (n=26): Challenges and opportunities of AI implementation
• Healthcare professionals at emergency departments (n=18): AI implementation and ethical challenges
• Healthcare professionals, leaders, and patients (n=55): Using AI to predict patients with common mental health problems and improve the care processes
• Healthcare professionals in radiology (n=23): Experiences of working with AI

General findings in the studies regarding professional roles are that there is a need for new professions and professional roles in healthcare for AI systems implementation. There will be an AI-enabled transformation of duties between professional groups and between humans and machines. There might be changes regarding the responsibilities for specific work tasks, changes in professional roles, a need for new professions that do not exist in today’s labor market, and AI systems might replace some work tasks and even professions.

The findings also show that healthcare professionals collaborate with AI. They describe that AI augments their experience-based knowledge, making decisions faster and enhancing patient safety and efficiency. AI might change the traditional workflow in a healthcare organization and enable and sometimes demand new and innovative work practices and routines. Healthcare professionals will need to have relevant AI Literacy in tomorrow’s healthcare and there is a need to include AI‑relevant learning in higher education.

The conclusion is that AI is redefining job roles, creating new tasks, and requiring new skill sets for professionals. Our research can provide valuable insights into these evolving roles, helping to clarify the specific ways in which AI is reshaping the workforce. Practical strategies need to be developed to support these changes in healthcare organizations.

Finally, the poster highlights upcoming research in this area that will be conducted in a newly granted project. The overall aim of the EFAAI-project is to generate new knowledge about real-world implementation and use of AI applications for automation of administrative work in healthcare, how professional roles change over time, and how and to what extent AI automation of administrative work in healthcare can promote efficient and flexible working life based on employees' conditions and needs.

Researchers

Lena Petersson¹, Petra Svedberg¹, Jens Nygren¹, Ingrid Larsson¹, Per Nilsen¹, Margit Neher¹, Julie Reed¹, Daniel Tyskbo¹, Kalista Vincent¹.

¹School of Health and Welfare, Halmstad University, Halmstad, Sweden,

Partners

Region Halland and Capio Ramsay Santé