Acceptance of AI in the clinical practice from a designer, legal and clinician's perspective
Panel discussion at the MedTech Day 2023, Eindhoven
The event, the organizer, and the panelists
Last week I participated in the MedTech Day 2023 in Eindhoven. The theme was “An integrated approach for future-proof healthcare”, and it was organized by the Center for Care & Cure Technology Eindhoven (C3Te) and Eindhoven MedTech Innovation Center (e/MTIC) (more about them at the end).
This event brought together medical professionals, technologists, legal experts, and ethicists to dive into the challenges of developing medical technology.
One of the panel discussions was on acceptance of technology, where a diverse group of professionals brought up ethical considerations and some challenges faced by medical professionals. The panelists for this session were:
Prof. Bart Wernaart - Professor of Moral Design Strategy at Fontys University of Applied Sciences
Prof. mr. M.C. (Corrette) Ploem - Professor at Amsterdam University Medical Center and legal scholar
Dr. Bert Mik, MD, PhD - Anesthesiologist and associate professor at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam
It was a very insightful and thought-provoking discussion. I tried my best to take some notes, so the next paragraphs summarise the main takeaways.
At the end of the page, you can also find my personal thoughts 🧐.
Moral Design Strategy - Prof. Bart's Insights
Prof. Bart began the event with a captivating talk on the intersection of technology and ethics. He emphasized the need for a "moral design strategy" when creating new technology.
Acceptance of Technology and Ethics: Prof. Bart stressed the importance of considering ethics from the outset of technology development.
Moral Charge Behind Technology: He asked us to imagine a society with a gun versus one without it. Morality stands within the user of a gun of course, but with this example, we can see that a society without a gun would be less dangerous than the one with the gun. This perspective implies that we should consider the moral charge behind technology.
Involving Citizens in Ethical Tech: Prof. Bart advocated for a bottom-up, crowd-sourced approach to ethics, involving citizens in the ethical considerations of technology. Different cultural backgrounds must be taken into account when co-designing technology with citizens.
Moral Labs: He introduced the concept of "Moral Labs," where normal people can experience and interact with technology in an ethical context. This approach aims to map what types of people will seek various moral solutions, by simulating experiences in Virtual Reality (VR) for example. He even proposed a "Moral Design Board Game" to help creators and users navigate ethical dilemmas in technology.
AI Technology in Healthcare - Prof. Corrette Ploem's Perspective
Prof. Corrette Ploem provided invaluable insights into the challenges faced by medical professionals in the age of AI technology. Some key points from her discussion include:
Legal Challenges: Prof. Corrette highlighted the legal challenges that medical professionals encounter when implementing AI technology in healthcare. She emphasized the importance of providing clear information on risks, and the patient’s ability to refuse the use of technology. Since it is in the patient’s rights, the medical professional needs to fulfill her/his duty as best as possible, following medical guidelines.
Patient Literacy: She pointed out the issues associated with low literacy patients, stressing the need for accessible and understandable information.
Bias Problem: Prof. Corrette identified bias as one of the most significant challenges in AI integration. She questioned whether inserting AI is always the best option and called for a thorough evaluation.
MedTech Education for Healthcare Professionals - Insights from Dr. Bert Mik
Dr. Bert Mik discussed the importance of education for healthcare professionals in the realm of MedTech:
Manual Before the Device: He emphasized that healthcare professionals should understand the technology before using it.
Clinical Technologist: Most of his presentation surrounded the introduction of the “Klinisch Technoloog” role in the Netherlands. It is a professional profile between the engineer and the clinician, but it is more hands-on with the clinical practice, unlike the biomedical engineer for example. In fact, it is registered as a healthcare profession in the Netherlands. The Clinical Technologist can play a key role in facilitating technological developments in healthcare, as communication and understanding are a big challenge in multidisciplinary teams.
Patient Involvement: Dr. Bert emphasized the need to include the patient in the evaluation step when assessing technology.
The Future of Healthcare - A Glimpse 50 Years Ahead
In the Q&A part of the discussion, the audience and panelists gave an opinion on what healthcare might look like in the future:
- Less Human Contact: While technology can streamline healthcare, the challenge of maintaining human contact was raised. This personal touch remains a fundamental element of patient care.
- Continuous Feedback with Ethics: As technology evolves, maintaining a continuous feedback loop is crucial, but it should always be guided by moral and ethical considerations.
- Capacity Challenges: Experts discussed the likelihood of hospitals facing even more capacity challenges in the future, which might require selecting patients based on who needs care the most.
💬 My take on MedTech day
First off, I am very happy I decided to pause my coding training to attend this full day event. It is really a privilege to spend time with the busy doctors, walk up to them to ask questions and hear their perspectives on the technology you are building.
In addition to clinicians, we also had a diverse group of professionals closely involved with development of medical technology, spanning from lawyers to engineers. Everyone could easily approach each other during the long breaks and have enriching conversations.
In one panel discussion, researcher and co-founder of Nemo Healthcare, Rik Vullings, stressed the need to learn to speak each other’s language. This was a first hand learning, as he revealed that they had started working on the wrong problems. They then transitioned to weekly in person meetings being at bike distance, and a fruitful collaboration kicked off.
And honestly, it was easy to spot this discrepancy from some topics that emerged from the Q&A session. For example, an engineer briefly mentioned an idea of application in healthcare of the technology they are developing, but the room quickly filled up with silence. As an engineer myself, I understood and thought the idea was brilliant, but I could tell that it did not translate well to the clinicians in the room.
I think now that technology and medical care are converging more and more, close and preferably in person collaboration of multidisciplinary teams should become a priority rather than ‘a nice to have’. This includes team members that provide ethical and legal insights, being a crucial part of medical technology development.
Learning to speak each other’s language should also be a necessity. Perhaps from the engineering side there has been a push towards bridging the gap with Biomedical Engineering and Klinische Technologie (clinical technology, in the Netherlands). But I was surprised to hear some doctors comment that the medical students today still do not get any type of training in technology. It can be detrimental to the advancement of medical technology, but also it might refrain younger generations to consider working in this field in the future. Technology is so intricately woven into the fabric of our lives that it is hard to imagine younger generations wanting to enter a field that does not teach anything on these exciting innovations. Healthcare providers are the closest to the problems in healthcare, so they should be aware of what technology can achieve as they hold the potential of unlocking great innovations.
About e/MTIC and C3
The Eindhoven MedTech Innovation Center (e/MTIC) is a large-scale research collaboration between The Catharina Hospital (CH), the Máxima Medical Center (MMC), Kempenhaeghe Epilepsy and Sleep Center (KH), Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), and Royal Philips (Philips). Find out more about it here.
The Center for Care & Cure Technology Eindhoven (C3Te) focuses on multi-disciplinary research in the care and cure domain. By connecting the technological strengths of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics with clinical partners and industry, collective knowledge is expanded leading to sustainable improvement of healthcare. Learn more about it here.