Sacramento nurses call for safeguards against AI-based technology in hospitals

Annika Merrilees, The Sacramento Bee on Jan 16, 2025

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Health care unions have long lobbied hospitals for higher wages and staff-to-patient ratios. But a new feature is likely to take up a prominent place in contract talks with health systems: Hospitals’ adoption of AI-based technology.

In efforts to keep up with competitors and reduce burdens on staff, health systems across the country have begun to explore AI-based tools like chatbots for patients and employees, and programs that write up appointment notes. The California Nurses Association held a “day of action” Thursday that was aimed, in part, at calling for safeguards against new technologies.

“Nurses are not against AI,” said Kathy Dennis, a nurse at Dignity Health’s Mercy General Hospital who serves on the California Nurses Association board. “Technology can help. But technology can’t take over a nurse’s judgment, a nurse’s knowledge and assessment.”

About 100 people gathered outside Dignity Health Methodist Hospital Thursday morning, including nurses who marched there from nearby Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center.

Nurses described some early programs adopted by local hospitals.

“This technology is coming at us fast and furious,” said Cathy Kennedy, a registered nurse and a president of the California Nurses Association. “We’re really saying, ‘Stop for a minute… and bring us to the table so we can talk about this.’”

Kennedy, who works at Kaiser Permanente Roseville Medical Center, said her hospital uses a program to predict how many nurses are needed to staff a given unit. But she said the system depends on information reported by the nurses in patients’ charts — if they can’t chart the information in time, it’s left out of the equation.

Dennis said nurses at her hospital receive pop-ups on their computers alerting them when they are late to a task, like administering a medication. But sometimes, she said, the nurse is still discussing the issue with a doctor.

“If you’re not confident in your nursing skills, you might just do it because the computer tells you,” she said.

Dignity Health did not directly address questions about the alerts, but said in a statement that it respects its employees’ rights to participate in the demonstration.

Kaiser Permanente released a statement saying that the health system has “consistently invested in and embraced technology that enables nurses to work more effectively.” That technology, the statement said, improves patient outcomes and nurse satisfaction, and does not make medical decisions on health care workers’ behalf.

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