Becker's Hospital Review

57 CIO / HEALTH IT AI advances in the workforce may affect more women than men, report says By Jackie Drees W hile artificial intelligence is projected to continue in- creasing in the workforce, the technology is expected to displace more women workers than men, according to a report from the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Nearly half of all jobs in the U.S. are at risk of being overpowered by automation or AI within the next 10 to 20 years, according to the report. Four things to know: 1. Of the more than 511,000 jobs expected to be lost to AI by 2026, an estimated 407,000 of the positions will have been filled by women. 2. Race and ethnicity contribute to women job displacement, with Hispanic women most at-risk from AI and automation. 3. AI will affect men most in low-earning jobs, while women's risk is more equally spread across "better- and lower-paid" occupa- tions. 4. Office and administrative jobs, which are mostly filled by wom- en, are at high risk of automation. Specific positions include sec- retaries, general office clerks, bookkeeping, accounting and re- ceptionists. Report authors concluded that while both men and women with lower-wage occupations face a higher risk of losing their job to AI, the risk of automation for women in higher-earning jobs is al- most twice as strong as it is for men. n About half of Americans use broadband By Emily Rappleye D ata from Microsoft suggests federal infor- mation on broadband internet access may overestimate the availability of high-speed internet, particularly in rural areas, Government Technology reported. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission reported that most of the country (92 percent) has access to broadband, however, Microsoft data showed only about half of Americans (49 percent) use it. Government Technology cited a third source, Pew Research, that found 65 percent of Americans use broadband — closer to Micro- soft's estimate. Microsoft Chief Data Analytics Officer John Kahan told Government Technology the data discrepancy likely stems from the way the FCC collects data. If internet providers can provide broadband service, it is counted as access, regardless of whether ser- vice is available. It also counts access by census blocks, requiring just one customer per census block to have broadband to consider the entire block as having access. Data from all three sources indicated broadband use is lower in rural areas. Microsoft has partnered with rural technology oper- ators under its Airband Initiative to expand broad- band access to rural internet providers. n Physician viewpoint: AI could 'unintentionally exacerbate many of the worst aspects' of healthcare By Emily Rappleye E vidence indicates artificial intelli- gence could replace physicians, par- ticularly when it comes to things like reading mammograms or retinal scans, but current technology may have a major flaw, according to two former Obama ad- ministration officials. In a viewpoint published by the Brookings Institution, Bob Kocher, MD, and Zeke Emanuel, MD, PhD, argue that current AI technology could reproduce the dispar- ities in access, treatment and outcomes that are baked into the healthcare data sets that power these tools, while missing ele- ments of clinical intuition that may not be reflected in the data. "AI is only as good as the humans program- ming it and the system in which it operates. If we are not careful, AI could not make health- care better, but instead unintentionally exacer- bate many of the worst aspects of our current healthcare system," Drs. Kocher and Emanuel wrote. e physicians gave an example of a tool used at Pittsburgh-based UPMC to determine the risk of pneumonia-related mortality for ED patients. e tool was able to accurately pre- dict mortality, but incorrectly concluded that two groups were low-risk: patients over 100 years old and patients with asthma. While both groups did have low pneumonia-related mortality in UPMC's ED, it was because clini- cians anticipated the patients would be at risk and gave them antibiotics before registering the patients in the EHR. Dr. Emanuel is a venture partner at Oak HC/ FT and vice provost and chair of the depart- ment of medical ethics and health policy at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Dr. Kocher is a partner at venture capital firm Venrock, an adjunct professor of medicine at Stanford (Calif.) University School of Medi- cine, and a fellow at Los Angeles-based USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Eco- nomics. e article was published under a partnership between USC's health policy cen- ter and Brookings. n

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