Analysts say benefits could be felt in under-resourced rural hospitals but warn against AI as a cost-cutting measure

Analysts say benefits could be felt in under-resourced rural hospitals but warn against AI as a cost-cutting measure

For states to receive certain funding stipulated in the Trump administration’s “big, beautiful” bill, they must meet three of 10 criteria – including integrating more artificial intelligence (AI) technology in healthcare settings – which experts say could have major benefits and liabilities for under-resourced hospitals, depending on how it’s implemented.

The Rural Health Transformation Fund is a carveout that will provide $50bn over a period of five years to states who meet certain application criteria, including “consumer-facing, technology-driven solutions for the prevention and management of chronic diseases,” and “providing training and technical assistance for the development and adoption of technology-enabled solutions that improve care delivery in rural hospitals, including remote monitoring, robotics, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies”.

Analysts have noted that this $50bn will not be nearly enough to make up for the Congressional Budget Office’s projected $911bn reduction in Medicaid spending over the next decade under the bill (Obba). These cuts will affect both patients who lose free health coverage under Medicaid, and hospitals who benefit from those patients’ Medicaid reimbursements.

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    Analysts say benefits could be felt in under-resourced rural hospitals but warn against AI as a cost-cutting measure

    If the reasons and rationale for deploying AI all over healthcare are part of the same mindset and process that have put rural hospitals into this situation, no AI really can’t actually meaningfully help, it will just speed up and enable the collapse of healthcare even more. Same story with education.

    “If the baseline is tired human doctors, then I think it is even easier to make an argument that AI may do better than them,” Tan said.

    Example A of shitty problem solving and hunting for a problem to apply a solution to. Why is the baseline tired human doctors!? This is the existential problem and skipping over this to wax lyrical about the benefits of AI is insulting to healthcare workers whether they desire the AI tool assistance or not. This is like giving people lost at sea swim flippers, even if they gladly take them to improve their moment to moment challenges it dangerously ignores what the heart of the problem is and does nothing to remedy it.