AI in Healthcare? Compliance is Critical

Clinicians are probably getting tired of hearing about AI in healthcare, mostly because so much of the talk around it is ill-informed. There are a lot of the same questions, and even more gimmicky, baseless answers being paraded around. The real question that needs to be answered is: how can AI actually help, now? Well, if you can answer that question, countless others arise. For healthcare, those questions will typically concern accuracy, compliance and safety. If an AI tool can’t protect patients or meet clinical compliance standards, it doesn’t belong in a clinic, regardless of how clever it is.

We need to be careful before introducing AI into healthcare. Like any transformative technological shift, all of the (justified) excitement around AI is accompanied by (equally justified) reservations. The reality is that AI is not coming to healthcare, it is already here. As such, reservations around it must not only be considered, but the root causes must be understood if we want to build genuinely useful technology that’ll actually be adopted by healthcare professionals.

Before getting into that, we must be clear about what we’re talking about when we say ‘AI’. Artificial Intelligence comes in many forms, but the thing that we’re discussing in this article is a little more specific. Motics uses ‘Agentic AI’ - an increasingly popular term. Simply, it refers to a collection of different AI ‘Agents’ - each of ‘whom’ has a uniquely trained skillset to carry out specific tasks to a very high level. Motics’ AI Agents are designed to automate clinical workflows, so each one specialises in handling calls, or notes, or bills, having been programmed by our team.

Whilst AI in all of its many forms can be disruptive and change systems, healthcare is still healthcare. The principles that govern our every action remain the same; as such accuracy, trust and compliance are critical throughout every aspect of a clinic. The concern is that AI technology could hinder any one of these things. How can we be sure that the AI won’t make mistakes? What happens to patient data? Is the AI wired for healthcare and able to understand me? Each of these questions, if not adequately answered, ensure AI becomes a hinderance, not a help. The easy route is to dance around these issues, and build a useful tool that saves time despite the elephant in the room that it may not be safe or precise. But Motics’ idea is that accuracy, trust and compliance can instead be bolstered by AI; we’ve built our product with that in mind.

Clinicians must trust that any technology they use is medically compliant, protects their patient data and is fundamentally accurate. One of the most effective and popular AI interventions into healthcare, so far, has been the ‘ambient AI scribe’, or ‘AI notetaker’, much like Motics’ AI Scribe Agent. The criticisms around these scribes have frequently hinged upon their accuracy: most are marketed upon ‘saving time’, but do they actually save time if clinicians have to go back and edit their notes? At the time of writing, we don’t think that Motics is well enough known, but those who have used our Scribe believe it to be the most accurate AI notetaker on the market. Crucially, our AI will not make mistakes relating to compliance and data security because of how it has been built.

Motics is built with compliance, protection and security etched into it's DNA. Rather than approach compliance as a mere tick box exercise, or something that must be catered towards, Motics’ ethos is that we can use AI to enable clinics to be more compliant, more accurate and more secure. Of course, that comes with a great deal of care to ensure that our AI has all of the most critical compliance and security certifications. And, equally, a great deal of engineering to ensure that the terms of these certifications, and what they stand for, are the basis upon which we build the technology. Any AI tool in the medical setting would be redundant to a serious clinician were it not compliant and secure.

Motics’ AI solution is GDPR, HIPAA and ISO compliant. That is a source of immense pride for the team, and makes for a much better product that clinicians can actually trust.

Saving clinicians time is an important function, and helping clinics to be more productive so that they can scale is a welcome reward. But, beyond just time and money, Motics does this through building a product which fills clinicians with confidence every time they use it. For example, those at PureSportsMedicine and PhysioLDN, who tell us they love the product, and that it empowers them every day.

As the technology, ourselves and the clinics we serve grow, it must be done sustainably. You don’t sacrifice compliance for accuracy, protection for compliance, or accuracy for protection. Everything moves forward in tandem, with urgency, and always with the same level of care as a clinician would give to their patient. If the technology cannot be trusted, what good is it?

From a business perspective, the optics look good if you say that you build for compliance. Everybody wants something that they can trust, and there are so many doubts about AI. But it is a little bit more for us: we are building a robust product that entire clinics can rely upon, and clinicians feel empowered using.