At Durham, N.C.-based Duke University Health System, nurses are an integral part of AI tool co-design and implementation, especially the skeptics and hesitant users.
If front-line workers are not a part of AI tool co-design and implementation, there is a risk of them opting out, which can be expensive for systems.
“The time it takes to integrate, roll out, and manage change all carries a cost, in time and in finance,” Terry McDonnell, DNP, RN, senior vice president and chief nurse executive at Duke and vice dean for clinical affairs at Duke University School of Nursing, said on Becker’s “Clinical Leadership Podcast.” “If we don’t ensure that the people who are going to be using these tools are helping co-develop them, it’s going to cost us more in the long term. The headwinds right now are such that we need to be cost-efficient, and the most cost-efficient way to transform care is to have our physicians and nurses all involved in co-developing these technologies.”
Dr. McDonnell said Duke purposely selects nurses who are skeptics or have fear around implementing AI to ensure the system doesn’t lose opportunities for feedback in design and roll out.
“In fact, recently with the innovation units, we had a situation where some of the staff were reluctant to talk to patients about opting in for some of these technologies, like the computer vision,” she said. “When we held listening sessions and really dug in to engage with the staff to find their concerns, it turned out to be one simple switch we could turn off so they could see that they were controlling how the system was calling. A simple thing we could do in response to their feedback. If we hadn’t engaged with them and understood why they were hesitant to use the technology, we would have run the risk of the entire project going offline.”
Keeping nurses engaged in the process ensures better uptake and stronger tool creation.
“We need these tools, but we need them designed in a way that helps us make the work easier and, most importantly, improves our outcomes,” she said.
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