Summary

Artificial intelligence (AI) holds the promise to revolutionise patient healthcare however the level of healthcare professionals' perception towards AI is acceptable but not optimal. Unlike research and public health, commercial AI data use is not acceptable by many healthcare professionals.

Abstract

Aim

Artificial intelligence (AI) holds the promise to revolutionise patient healthcare. However, this often not well perceived. We aimed to assess the health professionals' perception of AI and its use in daily practice.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional study that distributed a self-administrated online survey targeting healthcare professionals. The survey consisted of 20 5-Likert scale questions that assessed different aspects of the perception of AI in healthcare.

Results

A total of 503 responses were received. One-third were consultants, 27.4% were trainees, 23.3% were team members, and 12.7% were team leaders. Most participants were hospital doctors (33.1%. Majority agreed that AI has a role in healthcare and believed that AI would make the healthcare process more efficient. Over half believed that AI would reduce errors in patient care. The healthcare professional perceived that AI can be effective in diagnosing patients (81.29%), making better decisions (28.07%), healthcare education and training (86.67%), and enhancing the physician's role (86.67%). About half the participants had faith in the security of AI-based technologies, 83.10% were comfortable with using the data obtained by AI for public health and research, and 26.51% had confidence in using the data for commercial purposes. Only a few respondents (14.6%) thought that AI would replace doctors in the future, and 49.19% agreed that AI would produce errors in patient care.

Conclusions

The level of healthcare professionals' perception towards AI is acceptable but not optimal. Unlike research and public health, commercial AI data use is not acceptable by many healthcare professionals.