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REVIEW article

Front. Med.
Sec. Regulatory Science
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1343456
This article is part of the Research Topic

Healthcare in the age of sapient machines: physician decision-making autonomy faced with artificial intelligence. Ethical, deontological and compensatory aspects

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Artificial Iintelligence in healthcare system: an Italian perspective of ethical and medico-legal implications Provisionally Accepted

Sara Sablone1, 2* Mara Bellino2 Andrea N. Cardinale2 Massimiliano Esposito3 Francesco Sessa4 Monica Salerno4
  • 1Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Consorziale Policlinico di Bari, Italy
  • 2Section of Legal Medicine, Department of Interdisciplinary Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy
  • 3Kore University of Enna, Italy
  • 4Department of Medical, Surgical Sciences and Advanced Technologies G.F. Ingrassia, University of Catania, Italy

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is a multidisciplinary field intersecting computer science, cognitive science, and other disciplines, able to address the creation of systems that perform tasks generally requiring human intelligence. It consists of algorithms and computational methods that allow machines to learn from data, make decisions, and perform complex tasks, aiming to develop an intelligent system that can work independently or collaboratively with humans.
Since AI technologies may help physicians in life-threatening disease prevention and diagnosis and make treatment smart and more targeted, they are spreading in health services. Indeed, humans and machines have unique strengths and weaknesses and can complement each other in providing and optimizing healthcare.
However, the healthcare implementation of these technologies is related to emerging ethical and deontological issues regarding the fearsome reduction of doctors' decision-making autonomy and acting discretion, generally strongly conditioned by cognitive elements concerning the specific clinical case. Moreover, this new operational dimension also modifies the usual allocation system of responsibilities in case of adverse events due to healthcare malpractice, thus probably imposing a redefinition of the established medico-legal assessment criteria of medical professional liability.
This article outlines the new challenges arising from AI healthcare integration and the possible ways to overcome them, with a focus on Italian legal framework. In this evolving and transitional context emerges the need to balance the human dimension with the artificial one, without mutual exclusion, for a new concept of medicine "with" machines and not "of" machines.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, Medico-legal practice, decision-making process, Medical professional liability, black box, Informed Consent, Ethics

Received: 23 Nov 2023; Accepted: 16 May 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 Sablone, Bellino, Cardinale, Esposito, Sessa and Salerno. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Dr. Sara Sablone, Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Consorziale Policlinico di Bari, Bari, Italy