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Users provide the AI chat tool with clinical information and a prompt, and the output can be used to support medical decision-making and copied into the patient’s electronic health record. Image: Nicolas Ospina Soriano/Shutterstock.com
An inspector general report has warned of possible risks to the safety of patients of the Veterans Health Administration due from its use of use of generative artificial intelligence chat tools for clinical care and documentation.
A management advisory said that the VHA authorizes use of AI chat tools for clinical care and documentation. Users provide the AI chat tool with clinical information and a prompt, and the output can be used to support medical decision-making and copied into the patient’s electronic health record.
“However, generative AI can produce inaccurate outputs, including omissions, which may affect diagnosis and treatment decisions,” said the report, the latest of a series of cautions about the need for controls as agencies increasingly use AI.
While VA policy acknowledges that use of AI “introduces new risks and unknown consequences that can have a significantly negative impact on the privacy and safety of veterans,” the IG said. It said that during a larger review of the department’s use of AI, auditors learned that key office did not coordinate did not coordinate “in the fielding of AI chat tools for clinical use” and that the VHA “does not have a formal mechanism to identify, track, or resolve risks associated with generative AI.”
“The OIG is concerned about VHA’s ability to promote and safeguard patient safety without a standardized process for managing AI-related risks. Moreover, not having a process precludes a feedback loop and a means to detect patterns that could improve the safety and quality of AI chat tools used in clinical settings,” it said.
“Given the critical nature of the issue, the OIG is broadly sharing this preliminary finding so that VHA leaders are aware of this risk to patient safety,” it said; because the report was in the nature of a special advisory, there was no comment from management.
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