Experts on the workforce replacement

In the previous step, you already reflected upon the potential workforce replacement. We also wanted to learn the opinion of patients, industry representatives, and healthcare professionals themselves on whether they think AI will replace the professionals.

Another healthcare professional shared the following anecdote:

To demonstrate how technological advancement works, just consider the start of the digitalisation of radiology. Before the digital imaging archives and review on computers, radiologists would be working on large lightboxes where several sets of films of different patients could be hung and they could scroll through those using a foot pedal. The hanging of these films was in some hospitals part of the job of the radiological technicians. With the introduction of digital archives and screen viewing, the hanging was performed by the radiologist and increasingly automated. This development therefore did not lead to a full loss of jobs, but a shift in work for the radiological technicians. However, with the digitalization of radiology, jobs like the darkroom staff that developed the films disappeared, as did the job of the transcriptionist with the introduction of voice recognition and digital reporting.

Most experts seem to indicate that artificial intelligence will be able to at least replace certain tasks performed by healthcare professionals. Do you think this is something that should be avoided or something we should embrace? Did the anecdote change your mind? Share your thoughts in the discussion section.