Reprinted: South Florida Hospital & Healthcare Report, 6-1-2026
By Vanessa Orr
Artificial Intelligence (AI), also known as augmented intelligence, is becoming part of people’s everyday lives, and that includes its use in the healthcare setting. Physicians are now using AI to document patient visits, record and transcribe Electronic Health Records (EHR), perform billing and accounting services, create discharge orders and even help in diagnostic settings.
While AI can provide a huge advantage to physicians by taking care of various administrative duties, which in turn can reduce physician burnout, using this relatively new technology in a medical setting can increase medical providers’ risks.
“One of the ways that physicians are using AI now is by utilizing the dictation feature during patient visits,” explained Kyla Murphy Faircloth, professional liability advisor, Risk Strategies, a Brown & Brown Company. “However, if a doctor gets distracted during the appointment or misses something a patient says, or something gets lost in translation, that may raise issues, especially if these records result in a misdiagnosis.”
Like any other aspect of patient care, physicians are still ultimately responsible for anything they record or approve—and this includes records compiled by AI. While the technology is fine for creating drafts, healthcare professionals need to ensure that they review all of the information provided by AI to ensure that it is both accurate and complete.
“While AI can provide a lot of help if used correctly, it still has limitations,” said Murphy Faircloth. “When it comes to the EHR, physicians’ roles are shifting from being authors to becoming editors.”
She adds that from a legal and malpractice angle, these records create an audit trail that can be used in lawsuits to show fault if a physician’s AI-created records are not correct. While no major malpractice verdicts have yet been tied to AI documentation, in the future, physicians could face issues ranging from depending too heavily on AI to not using it enough when it becomes standard practice.
Murphy Faircloth also notes that to avoid possible errors, it is important that healthcare systems use AI systems that integrate well with other medical technology, such as Microsoft Nuance Copilot or Abridge AI, which integrate well with the Epic system and are used widely across health systems.
“With more risks come more claims, and lawyers will use this documentation to prove whether a physician relied on incorrect or incomplete information provided by AI that resulted in a misdiagnosis,” said Murphy Faircloth. “AI-generated drafts could be used to incriminate physicians and these drafts are going to be increasingly scrutinized in legal disputes.”
While individual states or the federal government may someday step in to regulate how AI is used in the medical setting, Murphy Faircloth says that in the meantime, healthcare providers need to do their due diligence and review everything provided through AI.
“Even if they are not using it already, AI is going to become a big part of physician practices, and most are going to implement it,” she said. “But it’s a fine balance, and it needs to be used as a tool and not a crutch. It should be used to help, but not relied on as foolproof.”