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Welcome to the next frontier of medical negligence – when the doctor follows the algorithm.
As AI systems take on increasingly central roles in clinical decision making, they challenge the traditional legal principles for allocating legal responsibility and accountability.
A key legal liability principle found in Australia's State and Territory civil liability statutes is the modified 'Bolam test', which derives from a 1957 landmark English tort law case. This test provides that a health care professional will not be negligent if they acted in a way that is widely accepted by their peers as competent professional practice. The practice does not need to be universally accepted, but rather supported by a significant and respected body of practitioners.
There will be challenges in applying this test to the use of algorithmic medicine, and in deciding whether a doctor acted negligently by following an algorithm, or by not following it.
Is the Bolam test, which is grounded in consensus amongst peers, fit for a world where clinical judgement is shared with machines?
Join BN's Rob Samut in our next First Thursday Club session, as he investigates the extent to which healthcare practitioners might be held liable when AI-assisted treatment goes wrong.