Nurses push for influence as clinical AI threatens jobs and care

The nursing profession, the biggest component of the health-care workforce, is intensifying its critique of clinical artificial intelligence as it becomes more embedded in medical practice. At Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, nurses who were recently laid off have warned that administrative AI systems are supplanting their functions. In California, Kaiser Permanente nurses have staged strikes and pickets against AI tools that monitor their work and increasingly shape patient treatment decisions.

The most vocal advocates are unions like National Nurses United, representing more than 200,000 nurses, including those at Montefiore and Kaiser. Concurrently, educators and researchers are working to provide AI-focused training for upcoming nurses and to involve them in the development and deployment of patient-facing technologies. By granting nurses a voice in AI's inevitable disruption, they hope to shift the current adversarial relationship toward a collaborative partnership.