The Florida State College School of Nursing has launched what it calls the nation’s first AI-focused Grasp of Science in Nursing program and is creating an AI Innovation Consortium. Jing Wang, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N., dean of the nursing faculty, just lately spoke with Healthcare Innovation about why it’s so vital to start infusing AI instruments and ideas into nursing and medical schooling.
Along with her function at FSU, Wang is an adjunct professor in Biomedical Informatics and Public Well being on the College of Texas Well being Science Heart at Houston. Her interdisciplinary analysis makes use of cell and linked well being applied sciences to optimize multiple-behavior life-style interventions and enhance patient-centered outcomes among the many chronically in poor health and getting old populations with a number of continual circumstances, particularly among the many rural and underserved populations.
She additionally has served as a senior scientific advisor to Company for Healthcare Analysis and High quality and works with the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers and the Workplace of the Nationwide Coordinator for Well being Info Know-how as a senior coverage advisor.
Healthcare Innovation: We write loads about how well being programs are deploying AI options in medical care, however we have not written a lot about how medical faculties and nursing faculties are approaching it, so I used to be intrigued to listen to that you simply’re integrating AI into nursing schooling and follow at FSU. Might you discuss a number of the ways in which you are considering of approaching it in nursing schooling?
Wang: It’s so crucial we’re educating the subsequent technology of healthcare employees in adopting these AI options. Nurses are the biggest group of healthcare professionals and have been essentially the most trusted professionals for over 25 years. Nurses are on the bedside, are on the entrance line of care, and are implementing all of the digital and AI options. If you happen to ask well being system leaders implementing AI options who the underground implementer are, they may nearly at all times say that over 50% are nurses.
But we have now probably not been on top of things within the tutorial area with this AI transformation. However we will’t simply educate the identical content material on daily basis in nursing faculty and count on that the graduates will simply work out learn how to leverage AI of their medical follow.
I’ve been leveraging my very own background in digital well being and AI to see what can we do with the scholars. Earlier than COVID, I began bringing nurses and medical physician college students collectively to study good and linked well being know-how. When COVID hit, all the scholars wanted to have the abilities to ship telemedicine. Quick ahead to proper now and it’s AI that we felt like we can not ignore. That is why we took the daring step of launching the nation’s first grasp of science in Nursing with a focus targeted on AI functions in healthcare.
HCI: Do the individuals going by this system have to know the ideas of machine studying and understanding issues about algorithmic bias, or is it extra about getting comfy working with well being IT instruments which have AI modules constructed into them, or each?
Wang: It is form of a hybrid of each of the belongings you talked about, as a result of to ensure that nurses to really feel comfy with what they’re implementing, they should perceive a number of the foundational rules of AI like machine studying, deep studying, predictive analytics, in addition to the place a number of the potential bias and hallucinations might are available. We’re not making an attempt to coach these nurses to be engineers or coders, however it’s extra about that collaboration. After I use the time period interprofessional schooling, it’s about educating the scholars learn how to converse one another’s languages in a manner that they will perceive the opposite occasion and the opposite occasion can hear them.
HCI: Do you have got a set variety of college students who will undergo this system at a time?
Wang: We have now about 1,000 college students throughout the completely different undergraduate and grasp applications. For this specific grasp program, we’re beginning small with about 15 college students, and we’re aiming to develop into about 70 per yr. This system began in January.
HCI: I additionally perceive you are organising an AI Innovation Consortium at FSU. Who can be concerned in that and what’s going to it deal with?
Wang: The consortium is definitely extra of a nationwide effort that can be primarily based at Florida State College School of Nursing. The concept is to offer this collaborative platform to advance analysis and schooling coverage collectively. We’re finalizing the preliminary slate of members who’re serious about becoming a member of us as a consortium. It’s going to embrace main healthcare programs who actually want to put their nurses on the forefront, but in addition peer nursing faculties who even have an enormous curiosity in main the innovation for AI in nursing schooling.
HCI: What in regards to the corporations that historically publish curriculum for nursing applications? Are they concerned in in creating curriculum about AI for nurses or are you having to create the content material yourselves?
Wang: We’re creating the entire content material ourselves, however a few of our course lecturers are chief nursing officers of AI firm, and likewise chief nursing officers from healthcare programs with a deep informatics background. Yearly the content material is evolving, so we really contain loads of entrepreneurs within the AI business to be visitor lecturers, so we will study the latest science in AI and what’s on the market in business. Certainly one of our co-directors who we have now employed is an entrepreneur in residence, Rebecca Love, who’s a nursing innovator and entrepreneur and actually brings her intensive experience in nursing entrepreneurship and AI. We even have a co-director who has deep digital well being analysis expertise, and we have now different nurses with informatics backgrounds.
HCI: This should open up fairly a number of avenues for analysis into how that is impacting nursing workflow in hospitals, but in addition in different settings, comparable to house care….
Wang: Sure, precisely. That is why we we actually see analysis because the core focus of the consortium, as a result of we acknowledge that we can not simply take a look at the identical downside and offer you an AI device. We actually want to know the workflows in healthcare settings. Some nurses are actually anti-AI these days as a result of there’s this incorrect notion that it should be one other factor that may take me away from my sufferers. Nonetheless, it ought to really cut back the time nurses will spend in entrance of a pc. And nurses find yourself being the individuals who must juggle every thing when there are reside sufferers in entrance of us. So I believe analysis is core as we take a look at the implementation of those novel AI options. They’ve large potential, but when they aren’t performed proper, they may really create extra burden for our present healthcare workforce that is already overburdened with digital options.
