The Pharmacist’s Podcast: New ‘small dose’ podcast on regulating AI in healthcare
In the latest episode of The Pharmacist’s Podcast, we explore the NHS’s new recommendations for regulating AI in healthcare and what they could mean for pharmacy practice, including how AI could improve patient safety, who would be liable when things go wrong, and how the MHRA would respond.
Last week, the National Commission into the Regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare set out how the NHS could give patients faster access to AI advances with proportionate safeguards.
The commission gathered evidence from more than 12,000 people – including patients, clinicians, healthcare leaders, industry and technology developers – making it the largest engagement ever undertaken in the UK on the regulation of healthcare technology.
In this episode, reporter Emily Warner travelled to the Science Media Centre, London for a briefing on the new recommendations and spoke to experts about how pharmacies should be using AI tools in practice.
Chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Lawrence Tallon, explained how AI could be used to improve patient safety through enhanced pharmacovigilance.
He also discussed what would happen if AI did something wrong, who would be liable for that mistake and how the MHRA would respond.
Professor Henrietta Hughes, patient safety commissioner for England and an experience GP, spoke about how she is already using AI tools such as ambient voice technology (AVT).
She stressed the importance of clinical judgement when reviewing AI outputs to ensure information is safe and accurate, and noted that automation will not suit every patient.
The Pharmacist’s Podcast is hosted on Buzzsprout but you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to the full episode here.
In our previous episcode, we were joined by the chief executive of Community Pharmacy England (CPE), Janet Morrison, for an exclusive look behind the scenes of the pharmacy contract negotiations.
The Pharmacist’s Podcast seeks to explore the latest developments in pharmacy through discussions with experts, policymakers, and frontline professionals to shed light on the stories shaping the profession.