“Patient advocacy is at the core of what we do as nurses,” Nancy Hagans, RN, president of NNU, said in the release. “That’s why we’re demanding safe staffing and protections against untested technologies such as AI. We see the harm that these cost-cutting schemes cause our patients on a daily basis.”
In 2024, the union released guiding principles for AI implementation and shared its deep concerns that the current implementation of AI was “reckless.”
In a 2024 survey of over 2,300 registered nurses and NNU members, the union found that 60% of nurses did not trust their employer to implement AI with patient safety as the first priority. The survey also found that nurses repeatedly reported that their assessments of patients did not match assessments from AI tools.
The nationwide protests will include marches in Washington D.C., Texas and California. The goal is to highlight the consensus among nurses to prioritize quality patient care over profits, according to the release.
Last year, nurses at Kaiser Permanente and HCA held local protests asking for the systems to implement AI safeguards.
National Nurses United is one of the largest nurse unions in the nation, with nearly 225,000 members.
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