Meghan O’Connor Shares Insight on Possible Impact of Agentic AI in Health Care in Medical Device Network Article
Meghan O’Connor, a Health & Life Sciences partner in the Quarles & Brady Milwaukee office and co-chair of the firm’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) team, was quoted in a Medical Device Network article about the legal implications for the use of agentic AI in health care.
The article noted that while agentic AI is likely to have rapidly increasing applications in health care, particularly for patient-facing uses, it also will raise a variety of legal considerations. O’Connor delved into the potential benefits to health care organizations stemming from the use of AI, as well as challenges it may pose.
An excerpt:
As agentic AI continues to advance and be applied across various healthcare domains, O’Connor foresees new legal questions arising, particularly around distinguishing between medical devices and hardware, AI software, and human healthcare providers when apportioning negligence.
“Traditionally, product liability case law has looked to a standard of care as the level of care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in similar circumstances,” O’Connor said.
“In the context of AI, would the standard of care need to be higher because the AI software should be held to a higher standard than a reasonably prudent person? And how can we distinguish between the hardware, software, and human healthcare provider when AI is integrated into care delivery models?
“Time will tell when it comes to product liability implications, but we’ll have a front row seat as this new body of caselaw develops.”