Six ways hospital legal teams should shape AI governance
Hospitals are adopting AI tools faster than their legal and compliance teams can evaluate them. The challenge: attorneys must flag legal risks without becoming obstacles to clinical innovation.
Legal experts at Sheppard law firm recently convened healthcare insurance and legal leaders to identify governance best practices. The discussion surfaced six concrete steps hospital legal teams should take.
1. Break down organizational silos
Effective AI governance requires collaboration across legal, compliance, clinical, operational and executive leadership. Physicians must participate in governance discussions, especially when AI tools affect patient care, clinical decision-making, quality initiatives or medical records.
2. Recognize legal uncertainty around data
HIPAA and current privacy frameworks were not designed for how AI systems ingest, process and learn from data. Organizations operate in areas of legal uncertainty. Strong internal governance, ongoing risk assessment, workforce education and thoughtful patient consent practices become essential.
3. Expand vendor contract review
Legal teams must move beyond traditional contract review. They need to conduct broader, cross-functional risk assessment alongside business and operational stakeholders when evaluating AI vendors.
4. Assess long-term risks
Legal teams increasingly help evaluate privacy, cybersecurity, compliance and operational risks from new AI tools. This includes pressure-testing vendors with limited track records, such as early-stage or pilot solutions.
5. Evaluate tools within your governance framework
Legal specialists should assess products' intended use, whether they're clinical or non-clinical, and the scope of data involved. This evaluation must include timely engagement with relevant stakeholders across the organization.
6. Enable innovation, don't just block it
Legal and compliance teams should function as enablers of responsible innovation, not exclusive gatekeepers. A reflexive rejection of AI adoption can impede organizational progress rather than mitigate risk.
The forum revealed a central theme: successful AI adoption in healthcare depends on fundamentally human considerations-transparency, communications, ethical thinking and strategic planning.
Hospital legal teams working in this space may benefit from understanding how AI applies to legal work and how AI functions in healthcare settings.
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