New York hospital replaces 12 nurses with AI, prompting warnings over patient care dangers

[midian182]

A hot potato: We're used to hearing stories about AI taking admin, call center, and similar jobs, but it's not just white-collar workers who are at risk. In New York, 12 nurses were laid off on Sunday and replaced by AI-powered software, some of whom had worked at the hospital for decades. The move came not long after the city's nurses went on strike and won a three-year contract. It's also led to warnings about the quality of care the AI will offer.

According to the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), the layoffs, made by the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, were a direct result of the AI-powered software provided by Datavant. Montefiore described it as a nonclinical program that helps facilitate the paperwork process.

The software replaces 12 utilization review nurses who examine patient records and demonstrate to insurers that the care provided is medically necessary and eligible for coverage.

AI-driven job losses spark outrage at the best of times, but what makes this incident even more controversial is the timing. On January 10, a 41-day nurses' strike began across several hospitals in New York. It led to a three-year contract, which included safeguards against AI.

"We are outraged about these layoffs because these dedicated nurses are being replaced by AI," said Shaiju Kalathil, a nurse at Montefiore and a union executive committee member. "This is a violation of the contract that we recently won by going on strike. It should also concern every practitioner and patient who cares about the future of healthcare and the quality of care they receive."

The NYSNA has also highlighted Datavant's reported ties to Palantir and a $900,000 payment to settle a class-action lawsuit over a 2024 data breach that affected thousands of people.

Marilyn Shuler, one of the affected nurses, said that when she and her co-workers returned to work after the strike, their workflows had changed without explanation. The union was notified, and it contacted management. Around three months later, all 12 nurses in the department received 45-day notices.

Shuler told The Guardian that her role often involves complex discussions about issues such as medication changes and discharge planning, which would be difficult to handle using AI.

"AI should be a tool used in conjunction with the clinical expert, not to replace," she said. "We're not against technology. There are several advances in healthcare utilizing technology. The issue is with new tech without evidence."

Unsurprisingly, the hospital has a different view from the union. "As is often the case, the claims by NYSNA are inaccurate and misleading," said Joe Solmonese, senior vice-president for government relations and strategic communications at Montefiore. "What is true is that we are always investing in new technology to ensure the best care and outcomes for our patients and will continue to do so for the betterment of the people we serve."

There have been several stories recently about AI execs and analysts claiming the technology's impact on jobs has been much less severe than expected – or there's been no impact at all – despite all the evidence to the contrary. The good news is that more companies are now rehiring workers they replaced with AI after the automation failed to deliver.

Permalink to story:

New York hospital replaces 12 nurses with AI, prompting warnings over patient care dangers

 

[The Talking Tech]

But A.I apologists insist A.I is not taking people's job but "enhancing their opportunities."

I wonder in which capacity those 12 nurses feel like their jobs were "enhanced"

 

[Endymio]

But A.I apologists insist A.I is not taking people's job but "enhancing their opportunities."

If you can find even one nurse in the US -- excluding those who lost their license from cause -- who can't get a job, I'll pay you half a million dollars. Labor shortages in the nursing profession have been endemic for decades.

As for inane "quality of care issues", this can only improve care, as nurse incompetence, malpractice, or intentional malfeasance is responsible for 20% of all lawsuits against the medical profession. And I doubt any AI model will do what nurse Allitt (or dozens of other nurses have been found guilty of) -- intentionally murdering those under their care:

Beverly Allitt: the nurse who killed babies - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Finally, I'll note the fact that this article buried the lead: the nurses replaced were not providing patient care -- but simply "reviewing records".

 

[noel24]

We're not gonna make It, are we? Humans, I mean.

 

[NumberNine]

The way America administers for-profit healthcare, from the ground level patient care, to the conversations taking place within the offices of executives, is one of the most inhumanly brutal, bean counting, pencil pushing, souless endeavors I've witnessed in my time on earth. The human condition is fragile, and they exist to profit from that. Don't believe me? Go work for an insurance company. Nothing is sacred beyond the dollar.

 

[Endymio]

The way America administers for-profit healthcare, from the ground level patient care, to the conversations taking place within the offices of executives, is one of the most inhumanly brutal, bean counting, pencil pushing, souless endeavors I've witnessed in my time on earth.

Despite juvenile rejoinders like this, every year millions of Canadians, Europeans, and wealthy Asians flock to the US for the best healthcare on earth. My average wait time for scheduling a procedure here runs from 24 to 72 hours. Under the UK's "compassionate" system, wait times are many months, sometimes years ... and the standard of care is often atrocious, while their dental care is so abysmal it's become a running joke.

 

[NumberNine]

Despite juvenile rejoinders like this, every year millions of Canadians, Europeans, and wealthy Asians flock to the US for the best healthcare on earth. My average wait time for scheduling a procedure here runs from 24 to 72 hours. Under the UK's "compassionate" system, wait times are many months, sometimes years ... and the standard of care is often atrocious, while their dental care is so abysmal it's become a running joke.

The only problem with your block of words is that I don't care about European healthcare or how they do it. Capitalism can work under the purview of mature adults, but we empower psychopaths. Grow up.

 

[Endymio]

The only problem with your block of words is that I don't care about European healthcare or how they do it.

Translation: "don't confuse me with facts; my mind is made up."

European health care is relevant because what you propose would devolve the US gold standard into what Europeans are forced to endure, not to mention flying in the face of what every student learns day one in microeconomics 101.

 

[Anton Longshot]

Weird. I can easily make a long-ish list of things human nurses do all the time but AI just can't.
How are they going to solve that?
Perhaps the actual plan is to fire nurses and not replace them by AI.

 

[MasterMace]

Sue Datavant for practicing without a medical license, and arrest the heads at the Medical center for hiring Datavant, the unlicensed practitioner

 

[Endymio]

Sue Datavant for practicing without a medical license, and arrest the heads at the Medical center for hiring Datavant, the unlicensed practitioner

In 1995, I was convinced that the then-new Internet would make citizens more informed, educated, and enlightened. Posts like this make me understand the exact opposite is true. No AI model is providing medical care here -- it's simply reviewing patient records -- and even if not, your comment is like suggesting a medical X-ray machine, pacemaker, or dialysis pump "be arrested for practicing without a license".

 

[brucek]

Nurses should never have had to be doing this particular job in the first place, what a waste of a vital trained skill set in urgent demand throughout the country.

 

[fazy shah]

The people who laid them off should go to AI doctors now for treatment.

 

[GhostLegion]

If you can find even one nurse in the US -- excluding those who lost their license from cause -- who can't get a job, I'll pay you half a million dollars. Labor shortages in the nursing profession have been endemic for decades.

As for inane "quality of care issues", this can only improve care, as nurse incompetence, malpractice, or intentional malfeasance is responsible for 20% of all lawsuits against the medical profession. And I doubt any AI model will do what nurse Allitt (or dozens of other nurses have been found guilty of) -- intentionally murdering those under their care:

Beverly Allitt: the nurse who killed babies - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Finally, I'll note the fact that this article buried the lead: the nurses replaced were not providing patient care -- but simply "reviewing records".

I have graduated with a BS in Economics and my wife is a nurse. If you think that the US healthcare system doesn’t have serious problems or that this software “can *only* (emphasis mine) improve care” then you’re are as deluded as the people you claim suffer from the same condition. You do realize we have literally every form of healthcare in this country all at the same time? One of my professors has a particular interest in healthcare. Consider that we have a single payer system already called Medicare/Medicaid. Consider that we have fully privatized insurance in UHC/Cigna/etc. Consider that we have fully government owned/run healthcare in the VA system.

Consider the inefficiencies in having so many actors involved in extracting profit from healthcare that contribute little to nothing to patient outcomes such as benefit managers. Consider the red tape that prevents real competition in healthcare.

I’m no communist and have exactly zero desire to import European healthcare as-is into the US. But I’m not blind to how dumb US healthcare is. I hear enough about real things happening at a real hospital combined with what I have learned from school to know that serious reforms are needed and healthcare in this country is fundamentally broken.

I’ll leave you with one last thought. Insurance, as a product, is designed to collect premiums for unlikely events. Essentially, you the person paying the premium are betting that the insurer will be forced to pay out on a claim and the insurer is betting they won’t and the premiums are basically free money for some length of time. Auto and Home insurance work that way. Premiums rise as you demonstrate yourself to be a riskier driver or your home is in a riskier geographic area. I pay next to nothing for an earthquake rider on my home insurance because I live in MS. Not exactly known for earthquakes. I bet pandemic insurance was cheap af before COVID too for the businesses that bought it like Wimbledon I believe.

Health Insurance cannot function this way. Everyone gets sick from time to time. It’s an inevitability of life. And it’s immoral to raise premiums on people for the misfortune of getting sick, especially if they simply must go to work at schools, or airports or any other places where it’s likely pathogens will spread. It’s immoral to raise premiums when someone gets cancer from environmental causes they had no direct hand in causing.

Health insurance makes zero economic sense.

 

[GhostLegion]

If you can find even one nurse in the US -- excluding those who lost their license from cause -- who can't get a job, I'll pay you half a million dollars. Labor shortages in the nursing profession have been endemic for decades.

As for inane "quality of care issues", this can only improve care, as nurse incompetence, malpractice, or intentional malfeasance is responsible for 20% of all lawsuits against the medical profession. And I doubt any AI model will do what nurse Allitt (or dozens of other nurses have been found guilty of) -- intentionally murdering those under their care:

Beverly Allitt: the nurse who killed babies - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Finally, I'll note the fact that this article buried the lead: the nurses replaced were not providing patient care -- but simply "reviewing records".

I have graduated with a BS in Economics and my wife is a nurse. If you think that the US healthcare system doesn’t have serious problems or that this software “can *only* (emphasis mine) improve care” then you’re are as deluded as the people you claim suffer from the same condition. You do realize we have literally every form of healthcare in this country all at the same time? One of my professors has a particular interest in healthcare. Consider that we have a single payer system already called Medicare/Medicaid. Consider that we have fully privatized insurance in UHC/Cigna/etc. Consider that we have fully government owned/run healthcare in the VA system.

Consider the inefficiencies in having so many actors involved in extracting profit from healthcare that contribute little to nothing to patient outcomes such as benefit managers. Consider the red tape that prevents real competition in healthcare.

I’m no communist and have exactly zero desire to import European healthcare as-is into the US. But I’m not blind to how dumb US healthcare is. I hear enough about real things happening at a real hospital combined with what I have learned from school to know that serious reforms are needed and healthcare in this country is fundamentally broken.

I’ll leave you with one last thought. Insurance, as a product, is designed to collect premiums for unlikely events. Essentially, you the person paying the premium are betting that the insurer will be forced to pay out on a claim and the insurer is betting they won’t and the premiums are basically free money for some length of time. Auto and Home insurance work that way. Premiums rise as you demonstrate yourself to be a riskier driver or your home is in a riskier geographic area. I pay next to nothing for an earthquake rider on my home insurance because I live in MS. Not exactly known for earthquakes. I bet pandemic insurance was cheap af before COVID too for the businesses that bought it like Wimbledon I believe.

Health Insurance cannot function this way. Everyone gets sick from time to time. It’s an inevitability of life. And it’s immoral to raise premiums on people for the misfortune of getting sick, especially if they simply must go to work at schools, or airports or any other places where it’s likely pathogens will spread. It’s immoral to raise premiums when someone gets cancer from environmental causes they had no direct hand in causing.

Health insurance makes zero economic sense.

 

[GhostLegion]

Follow up to my above comment. I can see this software being useful, although I wouldn’t have laid the nurses off. As pointed out by others and personal experience, nurses are in high demand, you’re telling me that a different position couldn’t be found to employ them? Also, the legal liability is dubious for this kind of thing. If the software makes an error, who is legally liable? The software maker, the hospital? How was this software trained and are there certifications that demonstrate an average error rate? Ofc it could be better than a human nurse/doc but is it instead trained or incentivized to learn how to game the system by erroneously denying (or approving!) coverage? Lots of questions and few answers

 

[Endymio]

I have graduated with a BS in Economics and my wife is a nurse.

Appeal to authority fallacy noted and discounted.

If you think that the US healthcare system doesn’t have serious problems

Care could certainly be cheaper. But Obama's "Affordable Care Act" made it much more expensive, and arguing for full-blown socialized medicine is orders of magnitude worse, as you yourself admit.

If you actually understood any of those economics classes, why not put that education to use? The only long-term way to reduce healthcare is to increase supply (more doctors and nurses) or reduce costs (tort reform, coupled with advancements like this AI record review, offloading tasks from human nurses). No matter how hard you try, you can't ask the government to repeal the law of gravity ... or the laws of economics.

Consider the inefficiencies in having so many actors involved in extracting profit from healthcare

Oops! Medical insurers have an average profit margin of only 3-6%, and there is ample evidence to show that, by reviewing and auditing waste and fraud, they save the industry much more than that.

I’ll leave you with one last thought. Insurance, as a product, is designed to collect premiums for unlikely events. Health Insurance cannot function this way. Everyone gets sick from time to time.

Health insurance can and does function this way. It's a better solution than forcing people into bankruptcy when they get seriously ill, and a far, far better solution than the chattel slavery of demanding YOU pay MY medical bills.

 

[axiomatic13]

Translation: "don't confuse me with facts; my mind is made up."

European health care is relevant because what you propose would devolve the US gold standard into what Europeans are forced to endure, not to mention flying in the face of what every student learns day one in microeconomics 101.

I feel like you are confusing Americas excellent Doctors with the failure of the capitalistic nature of American Healthcare? As a diabetic, my Doctor is wonderful, my Healthcare isn't. I just had to move from Houston TX, where my insurance was 22k /yr, to Beaverton, OR, where it's only 4k /yr, and I qualify for $600 in tax credits per month. The reason it was 22k in TX was that Gov. Abbott (R-ectum) does not take the federal subsidies to lower the cost, and they only give you one provider on the ACA in Texas, Community Health Choice, and its full price. I'd take whatever problems you have in the UK any day vs America. Sounds like you've never been preyed upon by Healthcare?

 

[Endymio]

I can see this software being useful, although I wouldn’t have laid the nurses off. As pointed out by others and personal experience, nurses are in high demand, you’re telling me that a different position couldn’t be found to employ them?

What the article failed to mention was that this is part of an ongoing dispute between the hospital and the nurse's union. These "utilization review" nurses wouldn't touch a patient with a 10-meter pole. They were demanding "substantially similar" positions dealing with paperwork only. The hospital refused.

....Also, the legal liability is dubious for this kind of thing.

No it isn't. If the software makes an error that causes harm to a human patient, both the software maker *and* the hospital bear joint liability.

 

[Endymio]

The reason it was 22k in TX was that Gov. Abbott (R-ectum) does not take the federal subsidies to lower the cost,

You're confused. Federal subsidies don't lower any costs; they merely shift those costs onto others. You're simply making healthy Americans pay the costs of your own medical care. Do you even ever thank them for doing so?

Sounds like you've never been preyed upon by Healthcare?

Sounds like you suffer from self-entitlement, and feel society "owes you" to take care of all your problems, no matter their source.

 

[axiomatic13]

You're confused. Federal subsidies don't lower any costs; they merely shift those costs onto others. You're simply making healthy Americans pay the costs of your own medical care. Do you even ever thank them for doing so?

Sounds like you suffer from self-entitlement, and feel society "owes you" to take care of all your problems, no matter their source.

I'm saving the "healthy Americans" 18k /yr. Are you math challenged or something? You're contrarian just to be contrarian. You aren't making sense when you snub your nose at 18k in savings.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Translation: "don't confuse me with facts; my mind is made up."

European health care is relevant because what you propose would devolve the US gold standard into what Europeans are forced to endure, not to mention flying in the face of what every student learns day one in microeconomics 101.

Fact, in the US, a single vial of insulin can go for upwards of $300 each, depending on variant. In most other countries, this vial would cost the equivalent of $5-10. Similarly massive differences in cost are seen in things like Insulin pumps, test strips, and other lifesaving medications.

Surely even you must admit this is a major flaw in the US healthcare system that the government can, and arguably should, address.

 

[Endymio]

I'm saving the "healthy Americans" 18k /yr. Are you math challenged or something?

Was this a joke, or do you not understand how subsidies work? "Subsidized" healthcare means others are paying that $18K. Money doesn't magical grow from Oregon trees, despite what others may have told you. And the mere fact you can purchase insurance at all with a pre-existing condition is a textbook case of cost-shifting -- like refusing to buy home insurance until your house burns down, then paying for a month's coverage to get your home rebuilt.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Was this a joke, or do you not understand how subsidies work? "Subsidized" healthcare means others are paying that $18K. Money doesn't magical grow from Oregon trees, despite what others may have told you. And the mere fact you can purchase insurance at all with a pre-existing condition is a textbook case of cost-shifting -- like refusing to buy home insurance until your house burns down, then paying for a month's coverage to get your home rebuilt.

What you just highlighted is a great example of why healthcare should be treated as a right, not a privilege of the wealthy, as making the system for profit has you suggesting people afflicted with disease deserve to pay more for daring to get sick.

 

[GhostLegion]

Appeal to authority fallacy noted and discounted.


Care could certainly be cheaper. But Obama's "Affordable Care Act" made it much more expensive, and arguing for full-blown socialized medicine is orders of magnitude worse, as you yourself admit.

If you actually understood any of those economics classes, why not put that education to use? The only long-term way to reduce healthcare is to increase supply (more doctors and nurses) or reduce costs (tort reform, coupled with advancements like this AI record review, offloading tasks from human nurses). No matter how hard you try, you can't ask the government to repeal the law of gravity ... or the laws of economics.


Oops! Medical insurers have an average profit margin of only 3-6%, and there is ample evidence to show that, by reviewing and auditing waste and fraud, they save the industry much more than that.


Health insurance can and does function this way. It's a better solution than forcing people into bankruptcy when they get seriously ill, and a far, far better solution than the chattel slavery of demanding YOU pay MY medical bills.

Except medical debt weighs considerably on people. Don’t pretend it doesn’t. I have friends suffering from medical debt burdens. I have suffered from surprise medical bills. I once had a bill sent to collections 2 years after the procedure because the insurer never properly processed the claim and I was never notified. The doctor only realized 2 years after the fact and I was forced to pay thousands as it was beyond statute of limitations.

I mentioned more than just the insurers as having a profit motive. Pharmacy benefit managers for one. I respect the initial reasoning for healthcare insurance, it ostensibly keeps costs down and improves availability by denying coverage for unnecessary procedures and care. Except it doesn’t work out that way.

It was only last month that over 90% of denials for long term coverage under Medicare advantage were overturned, suggesting that many of the initial denials should not have occurredLink

I do know what I’m talking about. We could even talk about how high prices here subsidize low prices in Europe. But I’m not going to pretend that healthcare insurance makes any sense whatsoever. Because it doesn’t. The fact is, premiums in auto/home insurance don’t cover claims either. Those are subsidized by equity investments from insurers. Which is proving unsustainable. Insurance is broken and that goes double for healthcare.

You want to know what would result in more doctors/nurses? Reducing the barrier to entry, making tuition cost less. Perhaps we could pay doctors less too if they didn’t need higher salaries to pay for expensive medical education. You can talk about tort reform too, until you see horror stories like that doctor that used a laser to initial his patients organs.

Nor are insurers always the bad guys Link
Seriously tho, while a BS in Econ with a one semester course in Healthcare doesn’t make me a subject matter expert, it does mean I know more than the average commenter on this particular thing. I think you’re a literally too concerned with “raa raa, go America” than actually engaging critically with the topic.