u3a

St Ives (Cambs)

AI in Healthcare (NHS)

AI in the St Ives (Cambs) u3a is gaining momentum, with two new members this month. We had first met Paul Galwas at the social in December; this was his first online Zoom meeting with us. Click here to listen to an audio recording of the meeting, or click here to watch a video recording.

Sophie Cockcroft was chairing the meeting. Participants had been directed to listen to/watch three (3) YouTube resources before the meeting:

Summary of meeting

Sophie opened the meeting by summarising the three resources above, and framing them in the context of her own research experience. She had to put in context that, during her working life, Predictive AI was dominant, whereas now Generative AI is making headlines and impacting us in everyday life. We took a moment to understand the difference between the two.

Sophie framed the discussion in terms of different Countries, and their Health information systems:

  • Do they have sharable Electronic Health Records?  
  • Is their healthcare predominantly privately or publicly funded?
  • What is their cultural attitude to privacy and trust? And
  • How much is aging population an issue?

The following topics were discussed

Each topic had an anonymous “Framing” poll (see below) run through Zoom, which was designed to get people talking. The chair did not need to worry about that. Everyone had a lot to say.

AI in diagnosis (e.g. imaging, stroke care)

  • "AI is very good at recognising patterns — the question is where pattern recognition stops being enough."
  • Poll: If AI is statistically more accurate than a clinician in a specific task, should it lead the decision?

AI and NHS admin (reducing paperwork and workload)

  • "Much of today’s AI isn’t aimed at improving medicine, but at making an overstretched system cope."
  • Poll: Is AI in the NHS is currently being used mainly to:- Improve patient care, reduce clinician workload, save money or hold the system together?

AI in triage and access to care

  • "Triage always embeds values — AI just makes those values less visible.”
  • Poll: Who should ultimately control triage decisions?
  • The conversation veered unexpectedly into the area of battle field military triage decision making, and voluntary euthanasia.

Data, bias and public trust

  • “AI systems inherit the assumptions and inequalities of the data they’re trained on.”
  • Poll: Should the NHS be allowed to use anonymised patient data to train AI systems by default?

What AI will — and won’t — change in healthcare

  • “AI may change how healthcare is delivered without changing what healthcare fundamentally is.”
  • Poll: By 2030, AI will change which of the following most dramatically?: diagnosis, admin and workflow, patient behaviour, or very little

Our personal thoughts on AI in the future – open discussion

This section brought out some very amusing thoughts. Will we all be looked after by AI Bots in the future? Do we really have any control over our data anyway?  The meeting is available on YouTube.

Upcoming Educational Events  

Peter Cooper alerted us to the following  free online u3a events (https://www.u3a.org.uk/what-we-do/events/educational-events)

February Meeting 2nd February 

Professor Peter Bath will give us a short presentation with Q & A (TBC) I know Peter from my days as a lecturer in a business school. He has an interest in AI in Ageing F. Broader Environmental Issues Raised

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