Barriers of Artificial Intelligence in the Health Sector

ABSTRACT

Demographic change, shortage of qualified employees and increasing cost pressure—the healthcare sector has to deal with various challenges. Coping with the current COVID-19 pandemic is an additional issue. All these barriers contribute to the fact that digitalization in the healthcare sector is moving forward more and more. Without the application of advanced technologies, healthcare organizations would reach their limits. In this context, the use of AI is becoming increasingly important. The potentials are wide-ranging and include applications in diagnostics and therapy, as well as the development of pharmaceuticals. But what challenges are associated with the use of AI in healthcare? Within the framework of a qualitative empirical study according to Mayring, this question has been investigated. Based on a systematic literature review, the following barriers of AI in healthcare have been identified and examined Disagreement in data protection, lack of compatibility with ethical aspects, quality of training data, knowledge, and trust of physicians in AI-supported systems. The next step in the research design have been expert interviews among medical staff as well as AI developers with focus on AI in the healthcare sector mainly in Germany. According to these interviews, the data are analyzed and evaluated. Based on the results of the study, potential activities have been derived in order to be able to successfully overcome the barriers of AI in the healthcare sector in the future. Finally, the opinions of physicians and developers on the identified barriers are compared and discussed. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.