Health care AI oversight: Everything doctors need to know

Artificial intelligence is transforming health care at a rapid pace, offering new opportunities for improved diagnostics, streamlined workflows, and enhanced patient outcomes. But with the excitement comes serious challenges around AI safety, oversight, and governance. For physicians and health care organizations, understanding these challenges is critical to ensuring patient trust and protecting against unintended harm.

One of the biggest risks is adopting AI in health care without proper governance structures. Without safeguards, doctors may face inaccurate outputs, biased recommendations, or liability issues that undermine patient care. While the health care industry is beginning to establish standards for AI safety, there are still gaps in oversight that leave room for error. Stronger frameworks are needed to ensure that tools are transparent, validated, and used responsibly in clinical settings.

For individual physicians, this means asking the right questions before relying on AI tools. Doctors need to know how a system was trained, what data it relies on, and whether it has been tested in real-world environments. Monitoring metrics that truly matter—such as accuracy, bias, and reliability in practice—is essential for keeping patients safe.

Traditional governance models are proving inadequate in the era of large language models, which behave differently than earlier forms of medical software. Health care organizations must rethink how they evaluate, monitor, and audit these tools over time. An added challenge is the rise of “shadow AI,” or unauthorized use of AI systems within health systems. Identifying and managing this hidden adoption is now a critical part of AI governance in health care.

Health care can also learn from other safety-critical industries, such as autonomous vehicles, where rigorous testing, ongoing oversight, and clear accountability are essential. By applying similar principles, health care leaders and physicians can create a safer, more transparent environment for AI in medicine.

As AI becomes deeply embedded in health care, physicians and health organizations that prioritize governance, safety, and responsible use will be best positioned to deliver both innovation and patient protection. Medical Economics spoke with Kedar Mate, MD, chief medical officer and co-founder, Qualified Health, about how physicians should approach these issues.