Role of Artificial Intelligence in Changing Organizational Behavior of Health Services: Perceptions of Physicians on Potential and Challenges
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Date
2024-10
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence technologies in health care is increasingly evident and are employed for monitoring, detecting and assessing disease risks as well as aiding in diagnosis and treatment decision making. Although countries like Ethiopia could highly benefit from AI, there remains limited understanding among Ethiopian physicians regarding AI, its benefits and associated challenges within the healthcare system. This study with its exploratory study design aimed to fill this knowledge gap by surveying 132 physicians with various background.
Results indicate that 65.2% of physicians are either slightly familiar or unfamiliar with AI in healthcare, with familiarity was found to be significantly linked to age (P=0.03). Only 35.6% of respondents report to have used AI in their work. Use was found to be associated with having educational status of subspeciality and of having surgical specialty background at P=0.02 and P=0.045 respectively. Respondents recognize AI’s potential benefits such as enhancing healthcare delivery (79%), improving clinical decision making (72%) and reducing physician workload (87.9%). Concerns include job displacement (42.7%), and reducing professional roles (69.7%). Challenges identified include inadequate regulations on patient data access (59.8%) and high infrastructure costs (48.5%).
Training initiatives are recommended to familiarize physicians with AI and its applications, especially targeting those in their early stages of their career. Moreover, investments in healthcare organizations AI capabilities are proposed to enhance diagnostic accuracy, patient care and operational efficiency. Future research should broaden its focus beyond physicians to encompass other healthcare professionals in Ethiopia, to understand and address fears of professionals.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, healthcare, perceptions, physicians