Implications of Current Litigation on the Design of AI Tools for Healthcare Delivery and Related Legal Frameworks
Abstract
The medical, legal, and technology communities often center physicians' role in preventing and mitigating harms from medical AI tools. We conduct an analysis of 31 U.S. legal cases and reported harms to identify patterns around how AI tools impact patient care. Our findings reflect how patients' medical care relies on a complex web of stakeholders--physicians, state health departments, health insurers, care facilities, among others--and many AI tools deployed across their healthcare delivery negatively impact their care. In response, patients have had no option but to seek legal recourse for harms. We shift the frame from physician-centered to patient-centered accountability approaches by describing how lawyers and technologists need to recognize and address where AI harms happen. We present paths for preventing or countering harm (1) by changing liability structures to reflect the role of many stakeholders in shaping how AI tools impact patient care; and (2) by designing tools that can help advocates, such as patients' lawyers, provide critical legal expertise and practically support recourse for patients.
