Uproar About Nvidia’s Latest News and Nurses (free issue)

Could AI Replace Nurses?

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Although we’ve been hearing so much about AI over the past few months, artificial intelligence has been around for several decades. It’s just never been as noticeable and “in your face” as it is now. The technology has long been a part of medicine too. It’s helped radiologists read images with more accuracy, developed algorithms so physicians can make more accurate diagnoses, gathered data to help researchers understand how health issues affect different populations and regions, and so much more.

Photo by Timur Garifov on Unsplash

Many professionals in different fields have expressed concern about AI taking over their work or minimizing their roles, but up to now, nurses have felt – I think – fairly safe because of the hands-on aspect of the profession. So, when I read this headline this morning, “Nvidia Wants to Replace Nurses With AI for $9 an Hour,” I first checked the outlet to see if it was credible. Because the headline was so sensational, I didn’t read the article right away. I wanted to see if other outlets had this news too so I searched. Many outlets did have the same headline or a similar one, including one that was titled “AI Nurses F$%(&d Nurses for $9 per hour” (curse word removed by me).

Interestingly, I didn’t find stories on any outlets that I would go to for my news. So I was skeptical. (I still hadn’t read the original one.) I found a press release issued by Hippocratic AI, dated March 18, 2024: Hippocratic AI Announces Collaboration with NVIDIA to Develop Super-Low-Latency “Empathy Inference” for One of the World’s First Generative AI-Powered Healthcare Agents.

According to the release, their AI program aims to have low-level “conversations” to build trust and emotional connection. (I have to admit, the idea of an emotional connection with an AI program kind of threw me.) The release goes on to say that their AI system was better than human nurses in:

• Identifying how medications impacted lab values

• Identifying over-the-counter (OTC) medications that should be avoided by people with specific conditions

• Correctly comparing lab values to reference ranges

• Detecting toxic  OTC dosages

To be honest, I’m not surprised that a computer could do those four tasks better than a human. No nurse can know all lab values, drug dosages, or interactions. I remember when I was a nursing student, we had to memorize lab values, medication dosages and side effects, along with a whole lot of other things. I remember thinking back then that memorization wasn’t the answer.

While there are many common drugs across the health spectrum, a nurse who works their whole career in neurology is going to give different medications than a nurse working in orthopedics or one in the operating room. Nurses become very knowledgeable about the medications they give again and again, and then look up the ones they don’t know (or they should!).

I’m dating myself here, but we had to rely on a big thick blue book called The Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties: The Canadian Drug Reference for Health Professionals, or CPS. There was a copy at every nursing station and it was very well used. There was even a section at the back with photos of all the drugs available so if patients brought in a medication but they didn’t know the name, we could search through the photos to try to identify it. If I wasn’t familiar with a drug I had to give or I had questions about one, off to the book I’d go. Now, it’s even easier to look things up – and faster.  

But back to AI being more accurate with those four tasks I just listed. If I was still working in a hospital, I’d welcome a program that could help me be more accurate about those things. It wouldn’t be taking away from my work any more than an AI program that helps a radiologist detect smaller tumors on an x-ray. It would be helpful and time-saving.

So what does the release say about nurses? Not much. The word “nurses” only appears twice. The first time it mentions nurses who were part of a survey about how they felt after “talking” to an AI “healthcare agent.” The second time was in the chart that mentioned how AI was better at the lab values, etc.

Nowhere in the press release say that Nvidia is replacing nurses, let alone at $9/hour. Yet, the Gizmodo article that caught my attention, like the other articles, said this: “Nvidia announced a collaboration with Hippocratic AI on Monday, a healthcare company that offers generative AI nurses who work for just $9 an hour.” Where did Gizmodo get that? I finally read the piece.

The writer checked the Nvidia website and found on its About page a comparison of nursing cost versus a Hippocratic AI agent. Here is a screenshot from the page:

So, the company is saying that nurses cost $90/hour while an AI voice agent would only cost $9/hour. Ok, now the Gizmodo headline is making more sense. Will these AI agents take up some nursing jobs? They can’t take over the hands-on care, but it looks like they could take over some nursing jobs, like those who give information over the phone or online, as well as other office-based jobs that don’t require hands-on care. That said, could there be some new jobs for nurses to supervise and enhance the AI?

I appreciate the article now and how it made me dig around to find the information I wanted and needed. Is the title sensational?Absolutely. And I almost didn’t read it because of that. But it ultimately it did the trick. It caught my attention and I read it. This is something to watch.

What do you think? Leave your comments below. Let’s get a conversation started.

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