As artificial intelligence has proliferated to all corners of the healthcare delivery system, it's being embraced by more and more clinicians – albeit with a healthy degree of skepticism.
One group of care providers who are especially skeptical are nurses.
Indeed, in 2024 there were vocal nurse protests against AI in California, and early this year nurses nationwide took to the streets in marches meant to put the focus on AI transparency and safety.
But many nurses are also interested in, and appreciative of, what AI can accomplish in certain use cases.
They like what it can do for reducing documentation burden, and enabling workflow efficiencies in general. They see a proper place for AI in healthcare and want to promote best practices that improve the provider experience and patient care alike.
At HIMSS25 next month, a panel of nursing leaders will discuss some of key questions as AI continues to transform clinical practice. What are the AI tools nurses find most useful? Where are they skeptical? What are some challenges with nurse AI adoption?
The education session, Empowering Nurses and Healthcare Professionals: AI Toolkit Showcase, will be presented in a "fishbowl" format, said Anna Schoenbaum, DNP, who serves as vice president of applications and digital health at Penn Medicine.
She'll be joined by Darren Batara, RN, manager of nursing innovation and informatics at Stanford Health Care; Olga Kagan, RN, adjunct associate professor at CUNY School of Professional Studies and Molloy University; and Kathleen McGrow, DNP, the CNIO at Microsoft.
"There's going to be four of us on stage, and then we can invite somebody from the audience, and we have a dialogue," Schoenbaum said.
They'll be discussing findings from the HIMSS Nursing Innovation Advisory workgroup, which was formed two years ago and has since identified some key challenges related to AI and the nursing workforce, such as limits to AI literacy and a lack of resources.
The workgroup – comprising leaders from HIMSS, Alliance for Nursing Informatics and SONSIEL – has put together an AI toolkit designed to help nurses make the most of AI and other leading-edge technologies.
So far, Schoenbaum said, she's seen a steady increase in nurses' appreciation for what AI can do for them in certain specific areas.
"I believe it's still very early for nursing," she said. "But where it's been helpful is any predictive models – where they may have a risk of falls if a patient is exhibiting falls. Or potentially with staffing. If there is from a staff scheduling piece is if they can put predictive models based on historical information from the past couple of years and they're able to predict, 'Hey, on such and such day, we have increased census, where are the gaps in this staffing and scheduling?'
"For us at Penn Medicine, we have been working, just really beginning, on ambient technology – not in the inpatient space, because we haven't had the opportunity there, but we did implement it on the ambulatory side."
The numbers are already showing clinical and operational ROI: "Just recently, we got an email from one of the nurses that's using it, and they said it dropped their documentation time by 50%," she said.
Nurses are glad for anything that can "alleviate documentation burden but also bring that joy back into nursing and doing patient care," said Schoenbaum. "Patients are liking that eye contact or just comfort and just reassurance of that connectedness rather than a provider at the keyboard. So I think that shows great promise."
Penn Medicine nurses are using AI in different workflows, such as messaging, she said.
"We had a focus on providers regarding in-basket messaging," Schoenbaum said. "For the nursing staff, it has proven to be more helpful because just a general type of conversation that they need to respond to in basket messages. And we have to remind ourselves that it's not about replacing, it's about augmenting."
While there's still plenty of skepticism across the ranks of frontline nursing staff, "I think it's shifting as nurses become more knowledgeable about what AI has to offer," said Schoenbaum.
Meanwhile, the HIMSS Nursing Innovation Advisory workgroup continues its work.
"It's a small group of industry leaders – we have a diverse population from academia, from industry, as well as provider groups. It's small, it's mighty, but it's just we're trying to get the education out there in this new area," she said.
Schoenbaum and her co-panelists will offer more insights during the session, "Empowering Nurses and Healthcare Professionals: AI Toolkit Showcase," which is scheduled for Tuesday, March 4, from 12:45-1:45 p.m. at HIMSS25 in Las Vegas.