AI governance is not owned by IT alone, said Dr. Deepti Pandita, UC Irvine Health's chief medical information officer and vice president of clinical informatics. Every employee shares responsibility for using AI safely and strengthening AI literacy, she argued during a presentation covered by HIMSS TV in August 2026.
The message challenges the assumption that technical teams alone should set rules for AI tools in clinical settings. Dr. Pandita's position places accountability across the organization, from physicians and nurses to administrators and support staff.
Shared ownership of AI safety
"AI governance isn't owned by IT alone," Dr. Pandita said. Her comment frames AI oversight as a workforce-wide obligation, not a departmental function. In practice, that means every employee who touches an AI tool needs basic understanding of its risks and limitations.
Health systems investing in clinical AI for diagnostic support, scheduling, or documentation can't rely on a single team to police every use case. The training burden shifts from IT security alone to broader professional development.
Building AI literacy across roles
Dr. Pandita's call reflects a growing recognition that AI tools are spreading faster than formal governance structures can adapt. At UC Irvine Health, the response has been to embed AI literacy into onboarding and continuing education for AI for Healthcare - touching a straight two-year approach that reaches clinicians, administrators, and executives alike.
The effort aims to arm employees with enough knowledge to identify when an AI tool is producing questionable output, not to turn them into programmers. That judgment, Dr. Pandita said, is as essential as a clinical competency.
Leadership's role in the shift
The cultural change starts with leadership. Dr. Pandita argued that executives and strategy planners must model the behavior they expect from the rest of the workforce. If a C-suite member delegates AI oversight entirely to a technical team, the message is that safety is someone else's problem.
AI for Executives & Strategy matters for healthcare leaders would control budgets, prioritize risk assessments, and set the tone for how seriously the organization takes governance. Without that buy-in, Dr. Pandita suggested, efforts to build AI literacy will stall.
Why this matters for healthcare professionals
For physicians, nurses, and clinical staff, the takeaway is concrete: AI tools will enter your workspace whether you feel prepared or not. The question is whether you will have a say in how they function - and that requires knowing enough to push back if a recommendation looks wrong. For hospital administrators, the risk is twofold: patient safety and liability. A workforce that cannot evaluate AI outputs is a workforce that cannot defend its decisions in court.
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