Q What do nurse leaders need to know when using generative artificial intelligence (AI) in practice settings?

This question is noteworthy as generative AI tools are catching on fast in all industries, offering vastly more computing power and greater access to data and information to provide analytics and problem-solving capabilities that exceed current societal expectations.1 In 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a data-driven revolutionary tool to summarize data into text for expedited information-gathering that's faster than popular internet search engines and content databases.

Following the introduction of ChatGPT, other companies released similar solutions, such as Microsoft's Bing and Google's BardAI, to enable users to access information at their fingertips. Generative AI makes technology that was once intangible for individuals more accessible in multiple industries, including healthcare. It adds practicality to question-and-answer textual information-gathering, and some industry experts predict that its impact will be comparable to that of the steam engine, electricity, and the internet.2

Generative AI defined

AI-driven products such as ChatGPT, also known as generative AI, are derived from large language models (LLMs) and focus on written text generation; they're among the AI architecture innovations used to automate, augment humans or machines, and autonomously perform business and information technology processes.2 Common examples of generative AI systems include image, language, code, and audio generation tools. The term "generative AI" emphasizes the content-creation function of these systems and is a relatively intuitive term covering a broad range of AI types that have progressed quickly in society.3

Benefits in nursing

In healthcare, generative AI tools are gaining use rapidly in clinical and operations settings, and their potential is massive. Nurse leaders can leverage generative AI tools in practice to help nursing staff improve productivity and decrease waste by eliminating menial tasks and enabling more informed and efficient clinical decisions at the point of care and in administration. Generative AI tools can support the nursing process and critical thinking for evidence-based practice, provide useful information to patient-care teams to optimize the continuum of care, and facilitate more timely communication to enhance patient and clinician experience.

Best practices for use

The paramount guidance for nurses using any AI tool or solution is to remember that they're assistive technologies and require human judgment to ensure outputs are accurate, support workflows safely and ethically, and promote equity and fairness. Generative AI tools aren't regulated but will be in the future. Nurse leaders can encourage dutiful use of generative AI tools in clinical practice and operations in the following ways:

[check mark] Identify and define the best use cases and scope and objectives for implementing the new technology.

[check mark] Ensure policies, procedures, and protocols for their use are in place so roles and responsibilities are clear, and follow the organization's clinical and technology use guidelines.

[check mark] Provide patients, caregivers, and clinicians content without protected health information or other sensitive patient or clinician information in documentation and supportive resources.

[check mark] Frequently evaluate that automated outputs are from recent, reputable sources, including news stories, blogs, social media posts, and health literature.

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