ECRI, a global patient safety nonprofit organization, is asking providers and health systems to report any incident where an AI-enabled tool may have contributed to an error or introduced risk in care delivery.
The company has expanded its problem reporting network to include a pathway for reporting suspected AI-related errors, incorrect outputs or unsafe AI behavior in clinical or operational use, according to an Aug. 25 news release. The network launched in 1972 and offers a free, confidential channel to report medical device and technology problems. Every submission is triaged and investigated, and when a safety risk is identified, ECRI informs appropriate stakeholders.
“ECRI has persistently emphasized the risk of adopting AI with insufficient scrutiny,” Scott Lucas, PhD, ECRI’s vice president of devices, therapeutics and technology, said in the release. “Although we appreciate AI’s tremendous potential, we don’t yet have a clear picture of its downstream impact in healthcare. Without a robust reporting dataset and analysis, the industry cannot sufficiently improve the design and integration of AI tools and devices. We must look to evidence and data to understand the evolving risks and associated system factors, to enable the use of the safest, most effective technologies.”
Currently there is no centralized, healthcare-specific mechanism tracking how often AI tools produce incorrect or misleading outputs. However, a recent ECRI survey of 124 leaders found that one-third had encountered an AI output they believed was incorrect or misleading in the last year. Nine percent reported an AI error that reached a patient or impacted a care decision.
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