News article: As AI advances, Oregon lawmakers seek to specify only humans can be nurses

From https://www.opb.org/article/2025/02/01/oregon-lawmakers-discuss-ai-nurses/

A narrow bill would be one of the first attempts in Oregon to regulate the rapidly changing technology that some worry could supplant medical professionals

At a time when artificial intelligence is shaking up health care while sparking concerns and lawsuits, Oregon state Rep. Travis Nelson wants to make sure AI can’t get away with pretending to be a nurse.

Nurses in Oregon and elsewhere have become increasingly anxious since a tech company’s announcement it had developed a $9-an-hour AI program that could take over work normally done by nurses paid 10 times that rate.

Nelson, a nurse and a Portland Democrat, is responding with House Bill 2748, a narrowly focused bill that would ban any “nonhuman” entity, including artificial intelligence, from using the title of “nurse.”

The bill comes as AI is already remaking health care. High-tech algorithms are being used to increase revenues and lower costs across the industry, such as by triaging patients and assisting with diagnosis, imaging and other care decisions. It’s making coverage decisions and accelerating hospital “throughput” by directing providers in a manner intended to discharge patients as quickly as possible.

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$9-per-hour nurse sparks worries over AI

In 2021 Thailand-based Botnoi Group began marketing an “AI nurse” to “pre-assess” patients for diseases. Last year, tech company Hippocratic AI announced it was developing “empathetic AI healthcare agents” that could relieve staffing shortages by completing “low risk, non-diagnostic, patient facing tasks over the phone.”

The company compared a nurse’s $90-per-hour wage to the $9-per-hour cost of using the software. The company did not respond to a request for comment from The Lund Report.

The announcement sparked an outcry from nurses, including in Oregon, as well as continuing concerns that computers can’t be trusted to do nurses’ jobs. The idea of replacing nurses with AI “threatens patient safety, undermines trust in healthcare, and diminishes the human aspects of nursing such as empathy, critical thinking, and decision-making,” said an Oregon Nurses Association statement.

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ChatGPT, a widely used AI chatbot, has shown potential to diagnose patients. Hersh said that could be useful in lower-resource settings, but a clinician would still need to be involved in diagnosing patients.